19 foreign firms offer to supply 250,000MT of rice

The number of prospective bidders for the open tender to deliver 250,000 metric tons of rice to the National Food Authority (NFA) rose to 19 on the eve of the deadline for submission of bids set for this morning.

The NFA said all those interested to compete for a total of eight contracts worth about P5.6 billion were all based in Southeast Asia.

Among them, 10 were from Vietnam, the source of most of the NFA’s milled rice imports during the past several years.

These were Vietnam Southern Food Corp. (Vinafood) II, Gentraco Corp., Gia International Corp., Vietnam Northern Food Corp. (Vinafood I), Phan Min Investment Production Trading Services Co. Ltd., Hiep Loi Food Jsc, Thuan Minh Import Export Corp., Wilman Trade Ltd., Thao Minh Chau Production Trading Co. Ltd. and Tan Long Group Joint Stock Co.

Six bidders were based in Thailand, including Ponglarp Co. Ltd., Thai Hua Co. Ltd., Capital Cereals Co. Ltd., Asia Golden Rice Co. Ltd., Thai Granlux International Inc. and Thai Capital Crops Co. Ltd.

Two of the remainder were Olam International Ltd. and Louis Dreyfus Co. and the last was Swhe Wah Yaung Agriculture Production Co. Ltd. from Myanmar.

NFA Deputy Administrator Tomas Escarez said in a statement that the entire volume was divided into eight lots—two lots of 50,000 tons each and six of 25,000 tons each.

Escarez, who chairs the NFA’s special bids and awards committee for this importation, said each supplier could bid for 50,000 tons at most.

“The volume was divided into lots to allow more private sector participation and to give a chance to small bidders to participate,” he said.