By Brian Jules Campued
The country’s rice supply is sufficient through the first half of the year as supported by recent imports and the upcoming harvest in March and April, the Department of Agriculture (DA) said Thursday.
“We have enough rice supply so prices should remain stable through the first half of the year. Our priority now is market stability,” Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. said in a news release.
Sec. Laurel assured the public of a stable price of rice until June in spite of El Niño but prices may stay elevated through September due to its impact on global rice supply.
A total of 750,000 metric tons of imported rice arrived in the country from December 2023 to January 2024.
Last week, the Philippines signed a five-year rice supply deal with Vietnam that provides 1.5 million to 2.0 million metric tons of rice annually.
Meanwhile, India has committed to deliver additional supply despite the import ban on non-basmati rice.
“What we need to guard against now are profiteers who may attempt to exploit the situation by using El Nino as excuse to hoard rice supply to push local prices to unreasonably high levels,” Laurel added.
He directed Assistant Secretary Arnel de Mesa to coordinate with the Department of Trade and Industry and law enforcement agencies to monitor surges in rice prices in the market.
Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) Undersecretary Claire Dennis Mapa said inflation could have been lower if not for the double-digit increase in rice prices compared last year.
PSA has identified rice as a major risk in the consumer price index (CPI) given its weight in the consumer basket. CPI is used to measure inflation.
Rice has a weight of 8.87% in the consumer basket and a 17.87% share in the spending of the bottom 30% of income households, according to PSA. – avds
