Trade dept: Plywood eyed for certification

Credit to Author: Anna Leah E. Gonzales| Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2019 18:03:07 +0000

THE Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) is studying the possibility of issuing an order to put back plywood on the list of products requiring certification.

In as statement on Wednesday, the DTI said it recently consulted with plywood industry stakeholders to get their inputs on the influx of plywood imports in the country.

According to the department, such imports, which are not tested for quality, grew almost fourfold from 2015 to 2019.

“If needed, the agency will draft a department administrative order (DAO) to reinstate plywood in the list of products under mandatory certification,” said DTI.

Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez said the order’s objective was to ensure consumer safety and eliminate the selling of substandard plywood in the market.

He also said substandard plywood were threatening both public safety and the local manufacturing industry.

“We saw the numbers in plywood. In [the] three-year period since plywood was removed from the list in 2015, imports have rapidly increased and these are not tested for standard compliance. It’s good if these products comply with the standards,” Lopez added.

According to the Bureau of Philippine Standards (BPS), plywood imports from January to June 2015 reached 8,624 metric tons (MT), worth around $4.5 million. In the same period this year, these grew to 32,768 MT, worth around $12.75 million.

A total of 194,826 MT of plywood worth S$ 75.58 million were imported from July 2015 to June 2019.

“We are adding more products [to the list] since many of them were released from the list. Since then, we saw import surges of these products. And since they are not subjected to mandatory testing, substandard products can come in,” Lopez said.

He also said that since substandard plywood could be sold at a very low price, local manufacturers might be forced to sell it at a loss or stop operations. This, in turn, may shrink the country’s manufacturing base and widen the trade deficit.

Under the proposed order, plywood products must comply with the technical regulation for mandatory Philippine standard (PS) licensing scheme under the international standard for plywood, PNS ISO 12465:2017.

The BPS will then test plywood samples before issuing PS Quality or Safety Certification marks to local manufacturers and Import Commodity Clearances (ICC) to importers.

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