Starting next month, the Philippine Department of Agriculture (DA) will allow traders to electronically file minimum access volume (MAV) import entries through value-added service provider InterCommerce Network Services (INS).
The e-facility allows for faster import processing.
MAV refers to the minimum volume of imports that the government will allow entry at lower duties. The list of products is updated annually by the DA.
For 2012, imports with MAV include live horses, assess, mules and hinnies; live swine; live sheep and goats; live poultry; meat of swine, fresh, chilled or frozen; meat of sheep and goat, fresh, chilled or frozen; meat and edible offal of poultry fresh, chilled or frozen; potatoes, fresh or chilled; coffee beans; corn; cane or beet sugar and chemically pure sucrose in solid form; and coffee extracts.
An orientation for Philippine importers on the new procedure was recently conducted by INS.
Meanwhile, DA will also start issuing the MAV import certificate or MAVIC starting February 2012. MAVIC allows DA to determine the identity of importers based on the import certificate as well as commodity allocation, thus preventing the use of fake import certificates.
MAVIC will be in addition to the sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) import certificate issued by a number of DA-attached agencies, including the Bureau of Animal Industry.
DA will eventually link MAV and MAVIC to the Philippine National Single Window (NSW) overseen by the Bureau of Customs. Only SPS import permits issued by DA are currently linked to the NSW.
Through the NSW, traders electronically submit forms for export, import, and transit procedures only once, and they are processed and cleared by multiple government agencies in a single integrated process.
