Philippine rice imports are inching nearer to the 4-million metric ton (MT) mark, already surpassing a earlier file achieved in 2022, as a confluence of typhoons and El Niño dry spell phenomenon slashed native manufacturing.
This 12 months by means of Nov. 7, the nation imported 3.896 million MT of rice, with almost 80 p.c coming from Vietnam, in accordance with the Bureau of Plant Trade.
It already breached the record-high import quantity of three.83 million MT in 2022 and surpassed final 12 months’s determine of three.6 million MT.
READ: Forecast: PH to hit file rice imports in ’25
Likewise, the newest determine was nearly one million metric ton away from the US Division of Agriculture’s rice import projection of 5 million MT this 12 months, however shifting nearer to the 4.2-million-MT abroad buy requirement estimated by the Division of Agriculture (DA).
In October alone, merchants purchased 533,298.49 MT of rice from numerous abroad sources, surging by greater than twofold from the 163,217.40 MT in the identical interval final 12 months.
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Vietnam delivered 3.04 million MT of rice, representing 78.1 p.c of whole, whereas Thailand shipped 497,465.78 MT.
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Pakistan and Myanmar, in the meantime, supplied 178,179.48 MT and 143,364.75 MT of rice, respectively. India, which had resumed rice exports lately, exported 22,108.08 MT.
Late surge
After a slowdown in abroad purchases early this 12 months as a result of uncertainties over rice tariffs, the amount has risen between July and October.
The DA beforehand defined that merchants have been in a wait-and-see mode as they awaited the Supreme Court docket’s resolution on a petition to halt the imposition of decreased import duties on completely different meals objects.
Nevertheless, the excessive courtroom has not stopped the implementation of Govt Order (EO) 62, which lowered the tariff charges on some agricultural imports akin to rice.
Nevertheless, it requested the federal government, by means of the Workplace of the Solicitor Basic, to touch upon the petition filed by a number of agricultural teams to nullify the EO.
The DA mentioned final month that the opposed climate situations had weighed down the manufacturing of palay, which accounts for greater than half of the worth of agriculture output.
In line with the Philippine Statistics Authority, palay output totaled 3.33 million MT within the July to September interval, down by 12.3 p.c from 3.8 million MT a 12 months in the past.
“The July to September 2024 palay manufacturing was the bottom manufacturing recorded for the quarter since 2019,” its report famous.
Break
In the meantime, Pakistan expressed its willingness to export a few of its surplus rice to the Philippines.
“We wish to improve that share, supplied we will additionally present the steady good provide of rice and that relies on mutual concessions for one another, which implies that the Philippines ought to assure us that they need this a lot rice yearly,” Pakistani Ambassador to the Philippines Imtiaz Kazi mentioned.
He mentioned Pakistan presently accounted for about 6 p.c of Philippine rice imports. He added that merchants from Pakistan have been looking for “stability and certainty” on the amount of its exports, in addition to the import duties, noting the fluctuating tariffs levied by the federal government and aggressive international costs.
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“As soon as it’s achieved, we now have the choice to transform our sugarcane and cotton fields again to rice,” he informed reporters.
