Philippines nears record high 3-million MT rice imports

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines is set to reach record-high rice imports this year at three million metric tons, already nearing China’s requirements amid a new regime for Filipinos’ main staple.

The country is now seen sourcing three million MT as more imports will continue to flood the domestic market following policy changes that removed quantitative restrictions on the basic commodity.

Based on the latest report of the United States Department of Agriculture-Foreign Agricultural Service (USDA-FAS), this year’s importation is 58 percent higher than last year’s 1.9 million MT imports.

This is also higher than the earlier 2.8 million MT forecast for the Philippines.

“Global rice production is forecast at a record, despite a small reduction this month reflecting a smaller crop in the Philippines. Lower imports by China are mostly offset by higher imports by Egypt and the Philippines,” USDA said.

“There is a rapid pace of shipments, particularly from Vietnam,” it said.

With the latest forecast, the Philippines is still setting record levels in terms of buying rice in the world market as it remains to be the second-largest global importer this year, next to China with an estimated 3.5 million MT of rice imports.

With the continued importation, the country’s rice inventory has maintained its upward trend as it inched up 1.3 percent in May, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said.

Latest data from the PSA showed that total rice inventory increased to 2.94 million MT, up 1.3 percent year on year.

This is also 12.2 percent higher than the previous month’s volume stock of 2.63 million MT.

The PSA did not specify the number of days that the stock inventory of Filipinos’ main staple would be sufficient.

But, based on the average daily consumption of Filipinos of 32,000 MT, the current inventory is sufficient for 92 days.

The National Food Authority, meanwhile, continues to improve its inventory following the additional incentive in its buying price, allowing it to buy more palay during the harvest season.

Households had almost half of the total inventory at 43 percent, while commercial warehouses held about 38 percent. Supplies from NFA depositories cornered 19 percent of the total.

On a monthly basis, stocks in the households and commercial warehouses showed increments of eight percent and 28 percent, respectively, but stocks in NFA depositories declined three percent.

Three months ago, Republic Act 11203 or the Rice Import Liberalization Law took effect, which replaced rice import quantitative restrictions with tariffs and reverted the minimum access volume to its 2012 levels.

Rice is a staple food in the country and the law is intended, in part, to spur imports in order to quell domestic unrest caused by inflation.

Higher imports are also expected despite a significant increase in local output as domestic consumption remains to be in an upward trend.

Production of milled-rice is seen rising by two percent to 12.2 million MT.

Rice consumption is seen to hit 14.45 million MT from 13.9 million MT as rising food prices are forcing less affluent Filipinos to consume more rice and less meat and vegetables.

The USDA said there is an improvement in area planted as rice areas are seen to reach 4.85 million hectares this year or one percent higher than the year ago.

Yield is also expected to improve to 3.99 MT per hectare per harvest from the earlier 3.96 MT.