Alaska unfazed by prospect of cheap milk imports due to RCEP

Alaska Milk Corporation (AMC) does not see the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) Agreement having the “biggest impact” on the future of the local milk industry, reflecting optimism from one of the largest milk product makers in the country which is eyeing to ramp up production this year.

AMC managing director Tarang Gupta said that the future of the Philippine milk industry is more dependent on private and public sector efforts towards scaling up production instead of the changes in import taxes for milk products coming from other countries.

The movement of tariffs, whether zero or 3 percent, is not the most significant factor, Gupta said in a press briefing last week, saying instead that “the biggest impact is how does the industry [and] the government start working together to improve the industry.”

Import tariffs on milk products stood at 3 percent before RCEP, with most of these goods seeing it reduced to zero during the first year of implementation of the regional free trade agreement.

Touted as the world’s largest trade deal, it covers the ten member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and five of the regional bloc’s trading partners Australia, China, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea.

The milk company executive highlighted the need for the Philippine milk industry to increase its productivity to compete with products from other countries.

“You see that in these [other] places, the local milk prices, if you compare it with a standard currency, are cheaper than what you see here,” Gupta said, citing countries like Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam.

“The more we increase the scale, the more its prices will come down,” he added. INQ

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