NFA mulls add’l rice imports this year
The Philippines is still in the process of assessing whether it needs to import additional rice for the remainder of the year given the onset of the lean season, the National Food Authority (NFA) said.
NFA public affairs spokesperson Angel Imperial said President Duterte has not given any formal instruction regarding rice imports for the second half.
“There has been no advice from the President regarding rice importation for the year,” Imperial told
The STAR.
This followed the statement issued by Myanmar that the Philippines had offered to buy rice from them through a government-to-government channel.
“They are probably saying that they will participate (in the bidding) but will not necessarily supply. We also invited other ASEAN rice producing and exporting countries,” Imperial said.
The Philippines has an existing memorandum of understanding on rice importation with Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam.
It can be recalled that President Duterte issued his first EO, reorganizing the Office of the President with Sec- retary to the Cabinet Leoncio Evasco supervising the new cluster of 12 agencies.
The NFA and the Philippine Coconut Authority which were under the Office of the Presidential Adviser on Food Security and Agricultural Modernization in the previous administration, remained under the control of the Office of the President.
Last April, the NFA said additional rice import is unnecessary since there is sufficient supply and entrusted all possible rice importation schemes to the next administration.
Despite delays in the importa- tion plan, the NFA assured the country had enough buffer stocks of rice at government- owned warehouses to keep prices stable in the coming months.
The state rice importer is mandated by law to have at least 15day buffer stock at any given time, and 30-day buffer stock during lean months.
Last year, NFA imported around 1.2 million metric tons of rice in preparation for the severe effects of El Niño but the dry spell was somewhat averted with the intervention of the Department of Agriculture.
The NFA, however, earlier assured there was enough rice supply.
“We have more than enough stocks of the good quality, lowpriced NFA rice for the lean months,” NFA officer-in-charge Tomas Escarez said.
He has also directed all the agency’s field offices to closely monitor the rice supply and price situation in all markets nationwide.
As of mid-June, NFA has more than the 30-day buffer stock needed at the start of the lean months, with current inventories enough to last for 32 days.
Rice inventory currently stands at 3.54 metric tons and remains sufficient for 110 days based on national daily requirement of 32,560 MT.