Philippine rice imports are inching nearer to the 4-million metric ton (MT) mark, already surpassing a earlier document achieved in 2022, as a confluence of typhoons and El Niño dry spell phenomenon slashed native manufacturing.
This yr via Nov. 7, the nation imported 3.896 million MT of rice, with practically 80 p.c coming from Vietnam, in response to the Bureau of Plant Business.
It already breached the record-high import quantity of three.83 million MT in 2022 and surpassed final yr’s determine of three.6 million MT.
READ: Forecast: PH to hit document rice imports in ’25
Likewise, the most recent determine was nearly one million metric ton away from the US Division of Agriculture’s rice import projection of 5 million MT this yr, however transferring 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 yr.
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Vietnam delivered 3.04 million MT of rice, representing 78.1 p.c of complete, 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 yr on account of uncertainties over rice tariffs, the quantity 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 determination on a petition to halt the imposition of decreased import duties on completely different meals objects.
Nonetheless, the excessive court docket has not stopped the implementation of Govt Order (EO) 62, which lowered the tariff charges on some agricultural imports resembling rice.
Nonetheless, it requested the federal government, via the Workplace of the Solicitor Normal, to touch upon the petition filed by a number of agricultural teams to nullify the EO.
The DA mentioned final month that the adversarial 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 yr 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 need to improve that share, supplied we are able to additionally present the secure 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 world costs.
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“As soon as it’s achieved, now we have the choice to transform our sugarcane and cotton fields again to rice,” he instructed reporters.
