THE Philippines, the world’s second-biggest buyer of rice, may import a record 3.2 million metric tons (MMT) this year, driven by higher-than-expected purchases abroad, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) said.
In its monthly global grains situation report, the USDA revised upward its rice import forecast for the Philippines in 2022 by 100,000 MT from an earlier estimate of 3.1 MMT.
Based on its latest projections, the USDA said the Philippines’s total rice imports this year would be 8.47 percent higher than last year’s 2.95 MMT recorded import volume.
The USDA explained that it revised upwards its rice import projection for the Philippines because of the “strong” pace of imports this year.
The Philippines’s rice imports from January to July rose by 62 percent to 2.325 MMT from last year’s 1.432 MMT, based on latest data released by the Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI).
BPI data showed that 81.72 percent or about 1.9 MMT of the rice imported during the 7-month period came from Vietnam.
BPI data also showed that it issued 448 sanitary and phytosanitary import clearances (SPS-ICs) to 47 eligible rice importers with a total corresponding import volume of 625,743.6 MT. The 448 SPS-ICs were all issued by BPI in June.
The USDA kept its local rice production projection for the Philippines at 12.6 MMT, or 1.44 percent higher than last year’s 12.42 MMT.
Per USDA data, total area planted with rice this year would reach 4.8 million hectares, slightly higher than last year’s 4.76 million hectares. The Philippines’s average rice yield is projected to inch up to 4.17 MT per hectare from 4.14 MT per hectare, based on USDA data.
The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) earlier reported that the country’s total rice inventory as of June declined by 12.3 percent to 2.22 MMT from last year’s 2.53 MMT.
The PSA said about 47.3 percent or some 1.049 MMT of rice were stored by households while 44.8 percent or 995,230 MT were held by commercial entities (warehouses, wholesalers and retailers). The PSA added that rice stocks in the National Food Authority (NFA) warehouses as of June 1 reached 175,490 MT, accounting for 7.9 percent of total inventory during the reference period.
“Rice stocks inventory in all sectors decreased compared with their levels in the previous year. Stocks in the households dropped by -7.3 percent, in commercial warehouses/wholesalers/retailers by -15.2 percent, and in NFA depositories by -22.0 percent,” it said.