RP to shop for rice from neighbors

RP to shop for rice from neighbors

MANILA (Reuter): The Philippine's National Food Authority (NFA) will shop for more rice from its Asian neighbors to beef up the country's buffer stocks before July this year, NFA assistant administrator Vic Racho told Reuters yesterday.

Racho said the NFA would shortly review an offer from Vietnam after the NFA got approval from President Fidel Ramos to import up to 650,000 tons of the staple before the third quarter, which is the lean period for Philippine rice output.

Traders from Pakistan, India and China have also offered to supply the rice requirement of the Philippines, he said.

"We are looking for suppliers from our neighbors now," Racho said.

The NFA has so far contracted 55,000 tons of Thai rice for delivery in March and April. "Under the same agreement, we have an option to buy an additional 150,000 tons of rice from Thailand," Racho said.

Early this month, a source in the Thai Rice Exporters Association told Reuters in Bangkok the Thai rice sold to Manila was priced at US$300 per ton.

Manila traders said Vietnam has offered to sell rice to the Philippines at a cheaper price, or $5 to $10 lower than the $300 per ton price of the Thai rice.

The Philippines has imported 1.2 million tons of rice from Thailand, Vietnam, India and the United States between July 1995 and June 1996 to meet the shortfall in domestic production, Racho said.

Racho said Philippine rice stocks was at 1.8 million tons at the start of February this year, of which around 300,000 tons are in NFA warehouses.

The Philippines consumes an average of 22,000 tons of rice per day, Racho said.

An official from the Philippine Agriculture Department said last month he expected the country's buffer rice stocks to fall below the ideal 90-day level, or around 860,000 tons, before July this year.

The government has set 1.98 million tons, or stocks sufficient for three months, as the ideal rice buffer to be maintained to avert a shortage.

An acute shortage in 1995 had made the government extremely unpopular as rice is the staple of the country's 68 million people.