THE country’s rice inventory as of February 1 grew 10.9 percent to 2.375 milion metric tons from 2.141 MMT recorded in the same period of last year, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said.
However, the volume was 11.2 percent lower than the 2.675 MMT recorded in January, according to PSA’s latest monthly rice and corns stocks inventory report.
“Of this month’s total rice stocks inventory, 44 percent were from households, 35.4 percent from commercial warehouses and 20.6 percent from NFA depositories,” the PSA said in its report released on Wednesday.
PSA data showed that rice stocks held by households reached 1.045 MMT, wihle those kept in commercial and NFA warehouses reached 841,150 MT and 488,680 MT, respectively.
“Relative to their previous year’s level, stocks in the households, commercial warehouses and NFA depositories increased by 1.3 percent, 3.7 percent and 64.2 percent, respectively,” PSA said.
“Compared with their previous month’s record, stocks inventory in all sectors dropped during the period. Stocks in the households, commercial warehouses and NFA depositories were lower by 12.7 percent, 11.6 percent and 6.9 percent, respectively,” PSA added.
In the same report, the PSA said the country’s total corn inventory declined 16.3 percent to a 10-month low of 654,520 MT.
“This was lower by 16.3 percent than the previous year’s stock inventory level of 781,520 metric tons and by 19.4 percent than the previous month’s inventory level of 812.01 thousand metric tons,” it said.
The PSA said the bulk of the corn stocks during the reference period of about 501,420 MT were held by commercial warehouses while the remaining 153,100 were kept in households.
“Compared with previous year’s level, corn stocks in the households increased by 4.9 percent, while stocks in commercial warehouses decreased by 21.1 percent. For the past two years, there were no recorded stocks in NFA depositories,” it said.
“Inventories in the stocks of households and commercial warehouses declined by 27.1 percent and 16.7 percent relative to their respective levels in the previous month,” it added.