500,000 MT rice arriving from India, Taiwan

Nearly 500,000 metric tons of rice from Taiwan and India will arrive beginning this month until February 2024, the Department of Agriculture (DA) said yesterday.

- BELLA CARIASO and DANESSA RIVERA

This is in preparation for the possible impact of the El Niño phenomenon on palay production.

"We received reports that around of the 495,000 MT committed by import permit holders to (Agriculture) Secretary (Francisco) Tiu Laurel," DA Undersecretary Roger Navarro said in a statement yesterday.

Meanwhile, a total of 20,000 bags equivalent to 1,000 MT - delivered before Christmas Day constituted the first batch of the 40,000 bags of rice donated by Taiwan, Navarro said.

Another 75,000 MT will arrive from "The 75,000 MT due in the coming weeks is part of the 295,000 MT of rice India has allocated to the Philippines," Navarro said.

In October, India approved the export of over one million MT to seven countries, with the Philippines getting over 28 percent of the export allocation.

"With the arrival of imported rice and the volume harvested by farmers in recent months, the country will have sufficient supply of the national food staple until the next harvest which starts in March," Navarro noted.

These imported rice will be slapped with an import duty of 35 percent, he said.

He noted that the country's daily rice consumption is 36,000 MT per day, or 1.08 million tons monthly.

Economic managers, especially the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), are closely watching the rice supply situation due to its impact on inflation.

The BSP has aggressively raised interest rates since last year to tame inflation, which affects the purchasing power of consumers and undermines economic growth.

Based on monitoring of the DA, the retail price of local regular milled rice was pegged at P52 per kilo; local well-milled rice, P56 per kilo; local premium rice, P62 per kilo and local special rice, P68 per kilo.

Imported well-milled rice was sold at P58 per kilo; imported premium rice, P61 per kilo and imported special rice, P65 per kilo.

'Prices still high'