The Philippines' National Food Authority (NFA) has awarded import rights for the entire volume of 660,000 tonnes of rice allocated to the private sector this year, an agency official said on Wednesday. The state grain procurement agency has awarded import rights to a total of 66 traders after three state auctions between March and May.
The tariff-free rice shipments are expected to come from top exporters Thailand and Vietnam. "We have completed the tender process for the entire private sector allocation," Gilbert Lauengco, special assistant to the NFA administrator, told Reuters. He added all winning bidders were given a maximum of 60 days from award notice to bring in the grain. The Agriculture chief has ruled out additional rice imports with forecasts of a record output this year and still-plentiful stocks from 2010 purchases.
The Philippines, the world's top rice buyer in recent years, is purchasing only 860,000 tonnes this year, just a third of last year's record purchases of 2.45 million tonnes. The NFA, however, is seeking offers from local traders to import an additional 187,000 tonnes of rice this year to further build up reserves ahead of the lean harvest season in the third quarter.
The additional imports is being sought under the Minimum Access Volume (MAV) scheme, which means shipments will be subject to a 40 percent tariff unlike the private sector and earlier government shipments. These imports are not subject to approval by the NFA council, which sets the country's rice import needs. "We have received some offers under the MAV scheme but we are still evaluating them," Lauengco said. The country's rice imports so far this year include the 200,000 tonnes the agency secured from Vietnam under a government-to-government deal.
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