PH secures El Niño stock with Vietnam, Thai rice

THE NATIONAL Food Authority (NFA) is readying contracts with state suppliers from Vietnam and Thailand for a total of 750,000 metric tons (MT) of milled rice worth $319.95 million (around P14.9 billion).

This will be used as buffer stock as the country braces for massive droughts next year due to the El Niño phenomenon.

In a call for offers made yesterday, Vietnam ended up giving the best bid for 450,000 MT at $426.60 per ton.

Thailand offered to ship in 300,000 MT at $426.83 per ton—the same as the NFA’s reference price or cap—but eventually agreed to match Vietnam’s price.

Before these, Hanoi and Bangkok both offered prices above the cap, respectively at $431.25 per ton for the full volume of 750,000 MT and $430 per ton for the 300,000-MT lot.

The NFA’s committee for government-to-government procurement rejected both offers and asked the bidders to revise their tenders.

“This is a happy event for us as it is a successful exercise,” said Patricia Galang-De Jesus, vice chair of the NFA committee.

De Jesus said the panel recommended to the NFA Council, the agency’s highest decision-making body, to award the contracts to Vietnam and Thailand.

She said the committee hoped to complete all needed papers within eight days, and to issue notices of awards within three days.

Latest data from the Philippine Statistics Authority showed the NFA was holding 770,000 MT of milled rice as of July 1.

The PSA said the inventory was good for 23 days of nationwide consumption.

In the first half of 2015, production of palay was pegged at 8.32 MT, a decrease of 0.7 percent from 8.38 MT in the same period last year.

The slight decrease was attributed to a 1.7-percent contraction in the harvest area, which was recorded at 2.1 million hectares.

Even then, the PSA said yield from rice farms improved to 4.04 tons per hectare this year from 4 tons per hectare previously.

For full year 2015, the agency said harvest may reach 18.86 million tons, which is 0.6-percent less than the 18.97 million tons produced last year.

That would mean harvest will be 6.5 percent short of the production goal of 20.09 million tons for 2015.