THE country’s rice imports this year may fall by 14 percent to 2.1 million metric tons (MMT) on the back of a projected record-high domestic harvest, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) said.
Latest USDA data showed the Philippines’s total rice import volume this year is 350,000 MT lower than the 2.45 MMT it imported last year.
This, despite an upward revision made by the USDA for the country’s rice imports this year. The USDA hiked its import forecast by 5 percent to 2.1 MMT from its earlier estimate of 2 MMT as it projected a smaller crop harvest for this year from earlier estimates.
Nonetheless, despite a downward revision on the Philippines’s domestic rice production this year from 12.4 MMT to 12.3 MMT, it would remain as the largest output by the country on record, surpassing previous record-high volume of 12.235 MMT in 2018, based on USDA data.
“With a smaller crop, the country is forecast to import more to satisfy rising demand,” the USDA said in its monthly global grain report released on Thursday.
USDA data showed the Philippines’s total rice consumption and residual this year will rise to a record-high of 14.5 MMT, which is 1.4 percent higher than last year’s 14.3 MMT.
Likewise, the latest total consumption estimate was 100,000 MT higher than the earlier estimate of 14.4 MMT for 2020, USDA data showed.
Given the abundant domestic harvest coupled by substantial rice imports, the country’s ending stocks this year could reach 4.709 MMT, 18 percent higher than last year’s 3.979 MMT, based on USDA data.
The BusinessMirror reported earlier that the country’s palay production this year is off to a good start as first-quarter harvest grew by 8.57 percent to 4.626 MMT, the highest volume produced on record for January-to-March period.
The production volume surpassed the previous first-quarter palay harvest record of 4.622 MMT in 2018, despite a 3.52-percent contraction in area harvested compared to three years ago.
Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) data analyzed by the BusinessMirror showed that total palay harvest area in the first quarter reached 1.148 million hectares, which was 42,000 hectares smaller than the 1.19 million hectares recorded in 2018.
However, palay harvest area during the three-month period was 4.55 percent bigger than the 1.098 million hectares recorded in the first quarter of last year, based on PSA data.
For this year, the Department of Agriculture (DA) aims to produce a new record-high volume of palay at 20.4 MMT, or 1 MMT higher than last year’s 19.4 MMT record. If the DA’s goal materializes, then the country would achieve 95-percent rice self-sufficiency level, the department said.
