Myanmar, Thai firms bag contracts for PH rice imports

State-owned Philippine International Trading Corp. (PITC) last week started awarding contract bids for the importation of 300,000 metric tons (MT) of rice as part of the government’s contingency plan to ensure food security.

However, only 105,000 MT of rice were awarded as some bidders either failed to meet PITC’s requirements or did not participate in some lots.

The bidding was divided into five lots, but only three lots were successfully bid out.

In all, four participated in the government-to-government scheme last week, which included Thailand’s Department of Foreign Trade, Vietnam’s Vinafood I, Myanmar Rice Federation and the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Ltd.The first lot was given to Myanmar Rice Federation with a bid price of $489.25 a MT. The contract indicated the delivery of 10,000 MT of rice not later than July 14 and 23,000 MT of rice not later than Aug. 14—both to be delivered via the port of Manila.

For the second lot, two batches of 21,000 MT of rice are set to be delivered not later than July 14 and Aug. 14, respectively, through the Cebu port. This was bid out to Myanmar Rice Federation for $494.25 a MT.The bidding for the third and fourth lots were unsuccessful, which was supposed to be coursed through Tacloban and Zamboanga. The governments of Thailand and Myanmar did not participate in the bidding while Vietnam and India failed to meet PITC’s requirements.The last lot was awarded to Vinafood I with a bid price of $497.30 a MT. Two tranches of 15,000 MT of rice are expected to arrive not later than July 14 and Aug. 14 via the port of Davao.The remaining 195,000 MT of rice will have to be rebid, although the National Food Authority has yet to decide when.

Total amount for the bidding was at P2.02 billion, or 27 percent of the P7.45-billion allocated for the government contract. INQ