San Juan,
La Union—The National Food Authority in Region I is set to receive around
35,000 metric tons of imported rice from Vietnam as part of the 500,000 metric
tons additional imported rice sought by the agency through the
government-to-government import scheme.
Dir. Carlito G. Co said the imported rice
is meant as “pre-cautionary stocks” of the government until it would start
procuring palay anew from the farmers during the summer cropping season next
year. He added that the first batch of the imported rice is expected to arrive
at the Port of San Fernando middle of December and the remaining volume to be
delivered to the region until March 2014.
Co said the rice import will help shore up
the existing inventory in the region even as it continues to buy palay from the
farmers.
This recent development, he stated further,
is also seen as a way to ease up farm gate price of palay which he said is
still very high.
“The infusion of the imported rice will
hopefully cushion the buying price of palay by traders which is still way too
high compared to the government price
of P17.00 per kilogram”, he said.
He added that with the coming of the
imported rice, prices in the market would also loosen up.
Vietnam has won the contract to supply rice
to the Philippines with a tender of US$462.25 per metric ton beating Thailand’s
offer of US$475.00. (NFA)
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