CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY – The National Food Authority (NFA) Region 10 on Friday said the agency is now selling imported rice through their authorized retailers, following the arrival of close to a hundred thousand bags of rice from Vietnam last week.
NFA-10 information officer Hazel Belacho said the imported rice is now available and sold at P32 per kilo by accredited resellers at the Cogon public market.
Belacho said there they are still in the process of revalidating the passbooks of other NFA retailers and once this has been accomplished, the imported rice will be sold in all authorized resellers.
Belacho said 4,600 metric tons or 92,000 bags of long grain well-milled Vietnam rice arrived in the seaport of Cagayan de Oro on board MV Truong Loc. 16 on June 12. Unloading of the imported rice was completed early this week.
Belacho said the region’s initial imported rice allocation for this year is 280,000 bags which will be delivered to Northern Mindanao. Included in the delivery are the 40,000 bags intended for Marawi City.
Expected to arrive in the next few days are two more Vietnamese vessels, namely, MV Zircon V. 1806, containing 7,700 metric tons or 154,000 bags, and MV Hai Ha, carrying 3,700 metric tons or 74,000 bags.
The 320,000 bags for Northern Mindanao and Marawi form part of the 250,000 metric tons of imported rice purchased under the government-to-government procurement scheme for the whole country, which was awarded to Vietnam and Thailand, Belacho said.
As of Friday, June 22, all the 92,000 bags are now stored at the NFA warehouse in Baloy, Barangay Tablon, this city, and ready for distribution to the region’s five provinces, she said.
The second batch of imported rice, about 100,000 bags, will arrive sometime August to replenish the agency’s stock in time for the “lean” months where rice is scarce.
“We will have sufficient rice supply come June up to lean months because aside from the initial 250,000 MT NFA rice importation under G2G [government-to-government], there will be another 250 MT NFA imported rice under the open-tender procurement scheme that will arrive after the 1st tranche,” the NFA-10 said in a statement.
“To augment rice supply in the country, there are also rice stocks coming in from our private traders who are allowed to import under the minimum access volume (MAV),” it added.
Belacho said the NFA has reminded consumers that the rice they are selling through their authorized retailers are sold at P27 and P32 per kilo. She said overpricing of the NFA rice is an offense.
Per data from the NFA-10, the daily rice consumption in the region is about 28,920 bags, with Camiguin having the highest demand for rice among the Northern Mindanao provinces. ( Jigger Jerusalem/PNA)
