Global trade for milled rice to pick up on local demand

THE VOLUME of globally traded milled rice is seen going up in 2016, partly due to increased importation by the Philippines, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said.

In its latest Food Outlook report, FAO said this was anticipated as international rice prices also continued to drop.

The National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) earlier said the country’s economic managers are considering to ship in some 1.5 million tons in early 2016.

The FAO said it revised its estimates on the volume of trade to take into better consideration the unrecorded rice flows.

“Under the new approach, 45.3 million tons of rice are estimated to have been exchanged internationally in (calendar year) 2014, [which is] 2.6 million tons more than previously reported and an all-time high,” the FAO said.

The United Nations agency said forecasts for the subsequent years have also been raised, now suggesting a 3-percent contraction in the 2015 trade, followed by a 2.2percent recovery in 2016.

“The anticipated upturn of trade in 2016 is likely to be sustained by larger imports by Indonesia, (North) Korea and the Philippines,” the FAO added.

The FAO also said the 2015 rice growing season has been facing unfavorable climate conditions, mainly due to the strong El Niño phenomenon that is expected to last until next year.

“As scope for recovering losses through larger secondary crops diminishes with the advancement of the season, the 2015 world rice production forecast has been cut to some 493 million tons, suggesting a second year of mute or negative growth,” the agency said.

The FAO added that, with global output seen falling short of demand, global rice stocks might shrink by 3.5 percent to 164 million tons in 2016.

As of Sept. 1, the Philippines’ inventory was pegged at 1.96 million tons, a decrease of 15 percent or 280,000 tons from the previous month, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said.

The PSA said the national stock was good for 58 days’ consumption.

At the National Food Authority alone, the stock inched up by 100,000 tons to reach 800,000 tons.

At the start of September, the NFA was able to limit its reserve stock to 92 percent imported as the agency was able to keep up a parallel effort to source supplies from locally grown produce.

As of Sept. 1, the NFA’s stock was good for 24 days’ consumption, well above its minimum-mandated volume of 15 days’ supply.