AGRICULTURAL groups weighed in on the expected decline of rice prices by October as traders exhaust the inventory of imported staple bought at higher tariffs.
The existing inventory of imported staple bought prior to lowering of tariffs was one of the reasons cited by Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. for rice prices to remain elevated.
Laurel said rice imports from the January-to-June period that were still levied with the 35-percent tariff would run out by mid-October.
The agriculture secretary also pointed to high world prices as another reason for the elevated prices of the grain.
However, Philippine Chamber of Agriculture and Food Inc. (PCAFI) President Danilo V. Fausto told the BusinessMirror “it is possible that price of rice will go down around October.”
Fausto said that, for the most part, the easing of high rice prices would be due to the sector’s output.
“Principally this [decline in rice prices] is because this [period is] the peak of palay harvest for the wet season,” he added.
Likewise, Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultura (Sinag) Executive Director Jayson Cainglet said that rice prices would not significantly decline through tariff reduction and volume of rice imports.
Cainglet also noted that Vietnam’s rice export prices are now higher than that of Thailand’s by $15 per metric ton (MT) for 5 percent broken and by $28 per MT for 25 percent broken.
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) adjusted downward its estimate of the Philippines’s rice imports this year on the back of slowing purchases of Vietnam rice.
The USDA earlier said that the country’s rice imports this year could reach 4.6 million metric tons (MMT), lower than its previous forecast of 4.7 million metric tons (MMT).
“With the price quote spread narrowing, Vietnam jumped $7 to $559 per ton, while Thai increased slightly by $2 to $573 per ton with only limited demand from Indonesia and the Philippines,” the USDA report read.
According to Cainglet, the efforts of the Department of Agriculture (DA) and its attached agencies to lower rice prices “validates our position that we do not need to reduce tariffs to decrease rice prices.”
“Pwede naman bumaba if strategic ang government intervention [in] production and post production and marketing,” Cainglet told the BusinessMirror.
The DA has launched programs that allowed the vulnerable sectors and local consumers to purchase cheaper rice at Kadiwa sites, such as the P29 and Rice-for-All program that sold well-milled rice at P45 per kilo.
Based on the DA’s latest price monitoring, the prevailing price of local well-milled and regular milled rice in Metro Manila markets was P50 per kilo and P48 per kilo, respectively.
The prevailing price of imported well-milled and regular milled rice was P49 per kilo and P46 per kilo, respectively.
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