THE country's rice imports reached 2.2 million metric tons (MMT) as of mid-June, up from last year's 1.8 million MT, the Department of Agriculture (DA) said.
The latest volume is about 400,000 MT higher compared to the quantity of rice imported a year earlier, Agriculture Assistant Secretary and spokesman Arnel de Mesa told reporters on Tuesday.
"There was an increase in importation because, as we recall, in the last quarter of last year, our department met with rice traders. They agreed to increase importation due to the potential worsening effects of El Niño," de Mesa said.
The dry weather is now officially over and the DA official said that the impact of the lack of water and droughts was not that severe, resulting in a volume loss of 100,000 metric tons of rice for the first quarter.
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has projected that the Philippines will remain the world's leading rice importer this year, with inbound shipments likely to hit 4.7 million MT.
However, the DA said that imports were unlikely to hit the USDA's projected volume as it was aiming for palay (unmilled rice) production of 20.4 million MT, equivalent to 13.7 million MT of rice, this year.
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Data from the Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI) showed that Vietnam remained the country's top source of the staple during the period, shipping 1.58 million MT of rice or 73 percent of total imports.
Thailand delivered some 339,670 MT of rice, Pakistan followed with 148,618 MT and some 66,120 MT from Myanmar.
The remaining volume came from India, China, Japan, Cambodia, Italy and Spain.
Since the year started, the BPI has released a total of 3,001 sanitary and phytosanitary import clearances to accredited importers.
Last year, inbound shipments of the staple totaled 3.6 million MT, down 5.9 percent from the record high of 3.82 million MT logged in 2022. For this year, the DA projects rice imports to not exceed last year's volume.
Source: https://www.msn.com/en-ph/news/money/rice-imports-higher-as-of-mid-june-da/ar-BB1owun1?ocid=BingNewsSearch
