The Philippines, the world's biggest rice buyer in recent years, did not finalise its 2011 rice import plans at a meeting on Friday, but the head of the state grain agency said purchases are unlikely to exceed 1 million tonnes. Angelito Banayo, administrator of the National Food Authority (NFA), also reiterated that Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia were possible sources of the grain.
"The limit would probably be about a million tonnes, including private sector importation," Banayo told reporters, adding that included contingencies for damage to crops in case of bad weather. "The way I look at it, we don't need to buy in one fell swoop," he said. The NFA Council, which sets the volume and timing of rice imports, did not finalise the plan for 2011 because the Agriculture Secretary, who heads the council, did not make it to the meeting.
The Philippines has previously begun importing its annual rice needs in the final quarter of the preceding year, but it currently has rice stocks equal to 56 days of demand, equivalent to 1.7 million tonnes, well above its traditional 30-day buffer. "We probably have to go to the market in the first quarter, but there really is no urgency on our part," Banayo said.
On Monday, Banayo said Manila would bring forward its rice purchases to the first quarter after Vietnam raised the minimum price of a rice export grade usually bought by the Philippines. State officials have previously said they want to cut this year's purchases to around a third to half of record imports of 2.45 million tonnes in 2010, given the ample rice stocks. Banayo said the agency was talking to the Finance Department about extending a scheme where private importers can buy about 200,000 tonnes rice annually via the NFA under a scheme in which they pay a service fee for bringing in the rice tariff free. A tariff of 40 percent is usually imposed on rice purchases not made by the NFA, making it unattractive for private retailers to import themselves.
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