The Philippines will hold a tender for 600,000 tonnes of rice on December 8, the country's state grain agency said on Monday, taking imports to 1.2 million tonnes in its most ambitious purchase plan in a single week. The world's biggest rice buyer has turned aggressive in its purchases after it lost as much as 1.3 million tonnes of paddy rice from three strong typhoons that hit the country's main rice-growing areas since late September.
"We are trying to do forward buying for next year because the effects of Typhoons Ketsana and Parma might be worse than expected," said Rex Estoperez, spokesman at the state-run National Food Authority (NFA). Buying at this time could keep prices in check since major exporters, such as Thailand, are holding huge stocks of rice. The government could also be trying to lock down supplies before presidential elections next May.
"We want to get low rice prices...Prices will climb (later) because India is entering the market," Romeo Jimenez, director for marketing operations at the NFA, told Reuters. Traders expect India, normally a major exporter, to buy as much as 3 million tonnes for its 2010 rice supply after severe weather ravaged its rice fields this year. Jimenez said the government has so far bought only 300,000 tonnes of paddy rice from farmers, way below its target of 1 million tonnes this year.
"We'll be lucky if we're able to buy 500,000 tonnes," he said about the NFA's local rice purchases this year. Jimenez added Manila's imports of the grain were meant to cover the volume lost from the typhoons and protect a government stockpile of 15 days of consumption.
The agency said the country's total rice imports for 2010 might reach 2.1 million tonnes, including 200,000 tonnes to be brought in by the private sector, higher than its total purchases this year of 1.775 million tonnes. The agency said in a bidding announcement it would hold a tender on December 8 for 600,000 tonnes of rice, for arrival between February and May 2010.
That would be its second rice tender in a week for the same volume and arrival dates, after saying last week it would hold a rice tender on December 1. It was the first time the state grain agency scheduled back-to-back tenders. The government may source rice from Vietnam, China, and Thailand at the maximum volume of 600,000 tonnes for each of the two tenders set for next month, the NFA said in its announcement.
It added that it could also buy rice from Pakistan, the United States, Australia and India, but only up to 100,000 tonnes. "I was taken aback. I was expecting NFA to make another tender but not so soon, and they're happening one week apart," said a rice trader, who asked for anonymity because he lacked authority to speak to the media, on the December tenders.
Earlier this month, the government awarded contracts for the supply of 250,000 tonnes of 25-percent grade rice to Vietnamese and Korean suppliers. The latest rice tender brings the Philippines' rice import pipeline for 2010 to 1.45 million tonnes, more than four-fifths its total purchases this year.
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