Philippines sees rice output up

The Philippines' rice output is forecast to rise 2.7 percent in the first half of this year on expanded acreage and improved yields, a government report said on Wednesday, suggesting the country would not be importing large amounts this year. Unmilled rice production may hit 7.782 million tonnes, above the January-June 2011 level of 7.577 million tonnes, the Bureau of Agricultural Statistics (BAS) said in a quarterly report.
The expected "wet summer" brought by the La Nina phenomenon would help boost the rice harvest, the report added. Rice output in the June quarter is forecast to increase by 5.9 percent from a year earlier to 3.747 million tonnes, offsetting a projected 0.1 percent drop in the first quarter. The Philippines, one of the world's biggest rice importers, has decided to limit this year's rice imports to 500,000 tonnes, lower than last year's approved purchases of 860,000 tonnes and almost a fifth of 2010's record imports of 2.45 million tonnes.
The government will review the 2012 rice import plan by the end of February or in March. The Agriculture department on Tuesday forecast growth of nearly 11 percent for unmilled rice production this year to a record 18.46 million tonnes. The south-east Asian country, which lost about 1 million tonnes of unmilled rice in the second half of 2011 due to typhoons, aims to be self-sufficient in the national staple by the end of 2013. The corn harvest in the first half may rise 5.1 percent to 3.477 million tonnes, the BAS said.