Xinhua, Manila :
The Philippines will import an additional 500,000 metric tons (MT) of rice to prop up its buffer stock and bring down domestic prices, a senior government official said Wednesday.
Philippine food security chief Francis Pangilinan said the volume is on top of the 800,000 metric tons (MT) purchased by the Philippines from Vietnam via a government to government deal this year.
The country bought 500,000 metric tons (MT) of rice from Vietnam in November after typhoon Haiyan (local name: Yolanda) destroyed large tracts of rice farms in central Philippines. Last month, Pangilinan announced that another 200,000 MT of rice will be purchased from Vietnam to ease the tightness in domestic rice supply.
He said in an interview over a local radio station that the additional 500,000 MT of imported rice will be purchased through open bidding. The volume is expected to arrive by the end of August.
Pangilinan said the additional volume of imported rice would ease high domestic prices of rice caused by the tightness in supply. Currently, he said Philippine rice inventory is enough to supply 82 days of requirements, lower than the ideal 90 days.
He said domestic rice supply tightened after typhoon Rammasun (local name: Glenda) destroyed some 50,000 MT of unmilled rice when it barreled through top rice-producing areas in the country.
The government is racing to beef up the buffer stock of rice as the Philippines has entered the so-called lean season, when local farmers do not harvest rice and storms wreak havoc on farmlands.
The high domestic price of rice caused inflation to remain at more than 4 percent in June. Year to date inflation is at 4.2 percent, which is at the higher end of the government’s 3 to 5 percent target for 2014.
