PRIVATE rice traders and importers have yet to import 2 million metric tons of rice (MMT) as they have only brought in about 40 percent of their total applied and approved volume this year, latest Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI) data showed.
Latest BPI data showed that rice importers have brought in 1.457 MMT out of the 3.478 MMT they applied from January to July.
This means that at least 2.020 MMT of rice are still expected to arrive this year, BPI data indicated.
Furthermore, BPI data showed that only 61,175 MT of rice entered in July, the lowest import arrival on a monthly basis this year.
The imported volume last month was not even close to half of the 216,798.322 MT volume that rice importers applied in July, according to BPI data.
Latest BPI data showed that rice importers only used 1,970 sanitary and phytosanitary import clearances out of the total approved 4,225 SPS-IC by end-July.
The BPI earlier told the BusinessMirror that “unjustified” underutilization by traders of their approved SPS-IC for milled rice is an “anomalous” activity that may disrupt state food sufficiency planning.
The BusinessMirror earlier reported that rice traders and importers who have unused sanitary and phytosanitary import clearance could be suspended by the DA as about 60 percent of issued SPS-ICs in the first half, covering almost 2 MMT, remained unutilized as of July 10.
The BPI, an attached agency of the Department of Agriculture (DA), said the underutilization of the SPS-ICs this year was attributed to such reasons as the lockdowns in countries of origin due to Covid-19 pandemic and export ban in Vietnam.
Other reasons given by rice importers were: delayed shipments, rice suppliers limiting their export to ensure supply for their own needs, port congestion and holidays at country of origins and high price of imported rice than locally produced staple, according to BPI-NPQSD.
“Underutilization of approved SPS-ICs without proper justification is a kind of anomalous activity which can disrupt government planning for food sufficiency,” BPI National Plant Quarantine Services Division (NPQSD) said in an e-mail interview.
BPI-NPQSD said the new requirements for securing SPS-IC would “avoid undersupply for consumption of the Filipinos and buffer stocking purposes.”
“The new requirements will assure that applied SPS-ICs will be arriving within the specified period, and together with the local harvest, avoid undersupply for consumption of the Filipinos and buffer stocking purposes,” it added.
The DA’s latest memorandum order required rice importers to submit additional requirements for the application of SPS-IC: 1) payment of certification of the consignment and 2) list of distribution points/warehouse of the said consignment.