Philippine rice inventory down by 18%

MANILA, Philippines — The country’s rice inventory remains on a downtrend, slipping by 18 percent to 2.18 million metric tons (MT) in April, according to latest data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).

The PSA reported that total rice inventory as of end-April was lower than the 2.68 million MT recorded in 2017 and was 29 percent lower than the 1.7 million MT recorded in the previous month.

For the first time, the PSA did not specify the number of days the stock inventory of Filipinos’ main staple will be sufficient for.

Based on the average daily consumption of Filipinos of 32,000 MT, however, the current inventory is sufficient for 68 days.

The National Food Authority (NFA), meanwhile, has almost no inventory in its warehouses when it is supposed to have a 15-day buffer stock.

The depletion prompted the government to make an emergency importation of 250,000 MT of rice via the government-to-government scheme and another 250,000 MT via open tender.

The imported rice is expected to start arriving toward the end of the month.

Households had more than half of total inventories at 63 percent, while commercial warehouses held about 36 percent. Supplies from NFA depositories cornered one percent of the total.

On a monthly basis, the stock inventory level in households and in commercial warehouses grew 25 percent and 44 percent, respectively, while a drop in stocks level was observed in NFA depositories by 72 percent.

Meanwhile, corn stock inventory stood at 369,340 MT as of end-April, 68 percent lower than its 2017 level.

Of the total, 69 percent was in commercial warehouses, 31 percent in households and less than one percent in NFA depositories.

Month-on-month, the stock level in both households and commercial warehouses went up 57 percent and 24 percent, respectively.