THE Department of Agriculture (DA) said Vietnam has resumed rice exports to the Philippines and other members of Asean to maintain adequate food supply in the region and cope with the new coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.
DA Secretary William Dar said Finance secretary Carlos Dominguez III received a letter from Vietnam Industry and Trade Minister Tran Tuan Anh, dated May 4, 2020 who assured the Philippines of the delivery of 400,000 metric tons (MT) of rice contracted in April.
From January 1 to May 1, 2020, the Philippines has contracted 666,480 MT of rice from Vietnam, of which 218,300 MT had been delivered, leaving a balance of 448,180 MT, according to the Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI).
“This means that Vietnamese rice exporters will commence fulfillment of their contracts with Philippine importers and consider future supply deals under an existing bilateral trade agreement,” Dar said.
Since January, the BPI has issued sanitary and phytosanitary import clearances covering 2.7 million MT, of which about 729,000 MT has arrived, with 1.189 million MT to be delivered this month and the rest in succeeding months.
Apart from Vietnam’s resumption of rice exports, Dar said the Department of Trade and Industry’s Philippine International Trading Corp. (PITC) has also officially opened the government-to-government rice importation for the supply of 300,000 MT of rice, which will serve as buffer stock during the lean months.
PITC said it has sent communications to Myanmar, Vietnam, Thailand, India and Cambodia.
But the Federation of Free Farmers (FFF) said the DA should be more open in the real rice situation of the country.”
The real situation is that, without the imports, we are in a precarious situation…,” saidRaul Montemayor, FFF national manager.
He said the DA should be clear if the 300,000 MT of rice that will be secured via a G2G deal courtesy of the PITC will really be used as a buffer stock for emergency use and must be “over and above” what will be consumed during the lean months.
He said the National Food Authority needs to beef up its inventory because it was not able to buy much palay in the recent harvest season as trader prices were higher than the government’s P19 support buying price.
“There could be a shortage if the private sector imports do not come in but it seems the DA does not want to admit this publicly… Without the 300,000 MT, June 30 inventory will be only 50 days equivalent if no other private sector imports come in. Not sure about the port situation at present but I read that even in Vietnam they had port problems because workers could not report for work due to COVID-19,” Montemayor said.
