The country’s rice imports this year could remain flat at 2.3 million metric tons (MMT) on the back of higher domestic output and slower purchases by traders due to record-high staple prices.
Despite a stable import volume, the country will remain the world’s largest buyer of rice for the third consecutive year ahead of China, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) said.
In its monthly Grains: World Markets and Trade report, the USDA revised downward its full-year rice import projection for the Philippines to 2.3 MMT from the 2.6 MMT forecast last month.
“In 2020/21 imports are set to decline for the second year in a row amid higher production, government interventions, and high prices from its traditional suppliers,” the USDA said.
The Philippines became the largest buyer of rice abroad in 2019 after the Duterte administration deregulated the country’s rice trade, allowing easier entry of imported staple. The Philippines imported 2.9 MMT of rice in 2019 based on USDA data.
Last year, the Philippines remained the biggest buyer of rice abroad having been tied with China at 2.3 MMT.
For 2021, China would import 2.2 MMT of rice, 100,000 MT lower than the Philippines’s 2.3 MMT, according to the USDA.
The USDA explained that the Philippines’s rice imports have been tepid as the government “slowed the distribution of sanitary and phytosanitary [SPS] import clearances in recent months” coupled by higher export prices for Thailand and Vietnam rice due to lower supply caused by drought.
“The Philippines is expected to continue being a large rice importer. Still, improved production, government policies that constrain trade, and record high prices from traditional suppliers are key factors limiting imports this year,” it added.
Latest Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) data showed that the country’s rice imports from January to November 2020 plunged to 1.907 MMT from 2.994 MMT recorded in the same period of 2019.
The Department of Agriculture (DA) earlier said the country’s rice imports this year could decline by 15.5 percent to 1.69 MMT due to projected record-high palay harvest of 20.48 million.
Agriculture Undersecretary Ariel T. Cayanan said they project full-year domestic palay production this year to reach 20.48 MMT, 5.35 percent higher than the estimated output of 19.44 MMT last year.
The higher production this year would bring the country’s rice self-sufficiency level to 95 percent from last year’s 90 percent.
This means that the country would only import about 5 percent of its total domestic rice requirement which is about 1.69 MMT, Cayanan said.
In the same report, the USDA projected that the country’s rice output this year could reach 12 MMT, slightly higher than last year’s 11.927 MMT on the back of higher harvest area and yields.
The USDA attributed the increase in rice production to the government’s annual P10-billion Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (RCEF) that started in 2019.