Milled rice imports set for new record high this year

The volume of imported rice that entered the Philippines within a year reached a new record high at a total of 4.25 million metric tons (MT) as of Nov. 28, according to the Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI).

The latest data from the BPI show the rice importation volume for the 11-month period was already higher than the 3.6 million MT for full-year 2023 and already surpassed the previous record high of 3.83 million MT set in 2022.

On Nov. 1 to 23 this year, traders brought in 378,725.508 MT of imported rice, approaching the October data of 572,073.96 MT.

READ: PH remains world’s largest rice importer

As in the previous years, Vietnam remains the leading source of rice imports as deliveries from across the South China Sea and West Philippine Sea reached 3.27 million MT. This volume represents 77 percent of the total inbound milled rice.

Thailand was still a distant second with 544,724.15 MT while Pakistan was third with 215,049.48 MT.

Myanmar, India, China, Japan, Cambodia, Italy and Spain also shipped rice to the archipelago during the reference period.

Also, the year-to-date volume as of Nov. 28 was 300,000 MT short of hitting the Department of Agriculture’s (DA) estimate of 4.5 million MT of rice imports coming in for this entire year.

Likewise, this was 800,000 MT away from hitting the estimate of the US Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service (USDA-FAS), pegged at 5 million MT this year, because of high import volumes from Vietnam.

The American agency said in a report the Philippines was importing “record amounts” as demand picked up alongside lower import duties.

A previous report from the USDA-FAS in Manila said the 15-percent import duty on rice provided “an attractive incentive” for traders to purchase imported rice, per industry contacts.

Through Executive Order No. 62 signed last June, the government slashed the tariff on imported rice to 15 percent until 2028 from 35 percent previously in an effort to augment local supply, manage prices and ease the inflationary pressure of commodities.

Earlier, Agriculture Assistant Secretary Arnel de Mesa said overseas rice purchases could reach 4.5 million MT before the year ends.

“This can also reflect the smuggling activities that local authorities are able to apprehend. This could be the actual figure of the imports coming in,” de Mesa, who is also the DA’s spokesperson, said in an interview earlier this month.

The DA previously said that importation could offset the substantial losses incurred by the rice sector this year due to consecutive typhoons. INQ