Administrative Order No. 24, Series of 2020 on Additional Guidelines on the Approval of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Import Clearance (SPS IC) for Meat Commodities.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic which forced the country to impose ECQ, there is now a drastic contraction of demand brought about by the closure of hotels, restaurants and institutions. This resulted to an oversupply of local production which led to the full capacity of Cold Storage Warehouses (CSWs). As CSWs are critical facilities in maintaining freshness and safety of imported meat and meat by-products, additional measures are hereby imposed by the Department to ensure proper cold chain management thereby safeguarding food safety of meat commodities. Additional Requirements in the Approval of SPS ICs are as follows. 1. Aside from the usual documents required by the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI) in the application of SPS ICs for meat, the following shall also be required from all importers: a) Certificate of Availability of Space of Accredited CSWs; b) Meat Importation Usage Report to ensure the importers have fully utilized their meat imports every year. 2. The documents written in Items 1.a and 1.b shall be issued by the NMIS. 3. Each application of SPS IC for meat should include the documents mentioned in Item 2. 4. Any incomplete requirements in each application of SPS IC shall be rejected by the BAI.