The Philippines has agreed to allocate a yearly import quota of 138,000 tonnes of rice to Australia, China and Thailand in the next seven years as part of concessions to allow it to maintain its volume limits on the import of the grain. The Southeast Asian country, which was bound to remove restrictions on imported rice by June 30 this year under the Uruguay round of world trade talks, has filed a notice with the World Trade Organisation that it wanted to maintain the volume limits.
"We have made concessions so that the quantitative restrictions will be extended by seven years to July 1, 2012," Gregory Tan, the country's rice trade negotiator, said on the sidelines of a meeting in Manila by senior officials in East Asia to discuss commitments made on an emergency rice reserve.
He said the Philippines agreed to buy from next year 98,000 tonnes of rice from Thailand, 15,000 tonnes from Australia and 25,000 tonnes from China.
Tan, who is also administrator of state trading firm National Food Authority, said the Philippines also offered to raise the minimum volume of annual rice imports that it will allow at lower tariff to 350,000 tonnes from the present 238,000 tonnes.
The minimum tariff will also be reduced to 40 percent from the present 50 percent, he said. The Philippines, along with South Korea, is the only two countries that maintain quantitative restrictions on rice imports.
Nine countries have negotiated with the Philippines on its rice limit extension, but only three countries requested for a country-specific import allocation, officials have said. Agriculture officials in the Southeast Asian country have said the Philippines needed to maintain the limits to prevent the surge of cheaper imported rice, which could put pressure on domestic prices.
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