PHL seen to import in ’23 record-high 3.9MMT rice

By Raadee S. Sausa

The higher forecast,” international market watchers USDA-FAS said, owes “mainly” to the “higherthan-anticipated imports of Vietnam rice.”

Meanwhile, the country’s imports forecast for 2024 is higher at 3.8 million MT than the 3.6 million MT.

E arlier, the Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI) data showed that the Philippines’s rice imports breached the million-metric-ton (MT) mark as of early May.

T he country’s rice imports as of May 4 hit 1.3 million MT, down by 12.7 percent from 1.5 million MT recorded by the agency as of May of 2022.

I n the first week of May this year alone, rice imports amounted to 34,050 MT, a decline of 89.2 percent from 316,604.35 MT a year ago.

V ietnam, the Philippines’ leading source of rice imports, supplied

1.2 million MT or almost 90 percent of the total. Myanmar came second with 70,165 MT.

T he Philippines also purchased rice from Thailand, Pakistan, India, China and Japan.

T he most favored nation (MFN) tariff rate for rice remains at 35 percent for both in-quota and outquota imports until end-December this year.

B eginning January 2024, the MFN for rice will revert to 40 percent for in-quota and 50 percent for out-quota.

In 2022, the country’s rice importation has reached 3.7 million MT, almost 1 million MT higher compared to the 2.77 million imported in the same period last year, BPI said.

T hailand exported 183,230 MT of rice to the Philippines last year while India shipped 10,094 MT, based on BPI data.