The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) said it will “most likely” come up with an updated suggested retail price (SRP) bulletin by early January next year.
“Our thinking is that given the process that we have to go through, it may take us beyond the holiday season to evaluate. Most likely we will come up with the SRP by early January,” said Trade Secretary Alfredo E. Pascual at the National Price Coordinating Council (NPCC) media briefing on Thursday afternoon.
The Trade chief said the DTI is calling on the manufacturers to help the agency in providing them “with more information that will help us assess the need for price increases.”
“So that’s where we are. We are in discussion with the manufacturers.. so we can appropriately assess the need for price increases,” Pascual added.
The Trade department said it is monitoring the prices of raw materials as the agency assesses the requests or notices of adjustment in its SRP of basic necessities and prime commodities (BNPCs).
“What we need to do is to check the increases in prices of various inputs to the cost of the product. If it’s sardines, the cost of tamban…the fish itself, then the cost of other inputs like the ingredients, tomato sauce, in-can, label, all those things,” Pascual said.
The Trade chief unveiled that they have requests coming from 25 percent of the 218 stock keeping units (SKUs). He said they have received requests from 55 SKUs.
According to the Pascual, the BNPCs with which manufacturers have requested for price adjustments include canned sardines, milk, bread, instant noodles, canned meat, laundry soap, salt, soy sauce, and toilet soap.
Pascual said the increase in prices range from one to as much as 10 percent.
In a radio interview last Saturday, Pascual said, speaking partly in Filipino, “For BNPCs, we see a possible hike in 55 SKUs out of 218; for 10 SKUs, a 1-5 percent [hike]; for 14 SKUs, about 6-10 percent; for 31, more than 10 percent—most are candles in the items with more than 10 percent increase.”
The latest SRP bulletin of the Trade department was published last August 12,2022. Following the publication of the said price bulletin, Pascual said, “we have received requests from manufacturers over that period from the time we published the last one and we are in the process of evaluating them.”
DTI-Consumer Protection Group (CPG) Assistant Secretary Ann Claire Cabochan said in a televised interview last month that the DTI received petitions for price increases for canned meat, canned sardines, coffee, milk and bread.
Jerome Ong, Vice President of Philippine Association of Meat Processors Inc. (Pampi) said in an earlier televised interview they are seeking a price increase ranging from P1.50 to P2 per canned meat.
Meanwhile, for bread manufacturers, Philippine Baking Industry Group (PhilBaking) President Jerry Lao earlier said that some of their members have cut down production because of the increase in price of flour. Lao said they’ve been asking the DTI for a “very minimal increase” of P4.
For canned sardines, Canned Sardines Association of the Philippines (CSAP) Executive Director Francisco Buencamino revealed that the petition to increase the SRP for canned sardines by P3 was filed by CSAP in July. Buencamino said this was months before the group warned of a “looming” raw material shortage in the latter part of the year.
CSAP explained last month that their petition to increase prices of canned sardines was pushed by the rising cost of materials like imported tin cans and tomato paste.
In the latest SRP bulletin released on August 12, the Trade department said 151 SKUs or 69.27 percent maintained their prices in the May 11 SRP list, while 67 SKUs adjusted their SRPs due to rising prices of raw materials and packaging and other costs globally.
The prices of these BNPCs, DTI noted in August, increased by 3.29 percent to 10 percent. The Trade department said those that increased by 10 percent were SKUs that have not raised their prices since last year.