Vietnam, Thailand to supply 203,000 tons of rice to PH

The governments of Vietnam and Thailand will be supplying the Philippines with an additional 203,000 metric tons (MT) of rice after securing contracts on Wednesday. This followed two failed bidding attempts.

From a reference price of $428.18 a MT during the first government-to-government auction and $447.88 during the second G2G auction set by the National Food Authority (NFA), the agency finally decided to adjust its price to $470 a MT—an increase of $41.82.

Both Vietnam and Thailand were able to comply this time with a price of $468.80 a MT.

A total of 123,000 MT of rice will be coming from Vietnam while 80,000 MT of rice will be shipped from Thailand. The total shipments will be sold at $95.18 million to the NFA and will be funded by the government.

The volume finally completes the additional rice imports commissioned by the NFA for this year at 1.25 million MT. The imports are meant to increase the agency’s participation in the market and beef up its own inventory.

“We are very happy with the result,” NFA assistant administrator Maria Mercedes Yacapin said. “Everything was bid out and we are even happier because they (importers) said they can bring out the shipment no later than Dec. 15.”

Despite a delay of more than a month for the bidding, the agency’s terms for the shipment of the imports were unchanged.

Traders were still mandated to deliver the imports in two tranches—the first no later than Dec. 15, while the second must arrive before the end of the year.

Aside from the rice imports, Yacapin said the agency had also been successful in buying unmilled rice, or palay from local producers now that most of the provinces were already in the harvest season.