By Madelaine B. Miraflor
As many as 174 companies have formally expressed interest to import rice under the government's out-quota rice importation program.
NFA logo (Photo courtesy of wikipedia)
That was based on a latest data provided by the National Food Authority (NFA) which shows that as of January 10, 174 companies have already filed application to bring in as much as 1.16 million metric tons (MT) of rice into the country.
While most of these companies intend to import a lot of 25 percent and 5 percent brokens of White Rice, some plans to bring in a specific amount of Glutinous Rice, Super Basmati Rice, Fragrant Rice, and Well Milled Long Grain Rice.
Under the out quota importation, everyone can import rice if they have the financial, warehousing, retailing capacity to do so.
The companies who are set to bring in the largest amount of imported rice so far are Purerice Milling and Processing Corp. (100,000 MT), Muslim Christian Alliance MPC (50,000 MT), Pinguiaman Farmers MPC (50,000 MT), AJ Developers and Multi Operation Technical High Environment Resources, Inc. (30,000 MT), and Pengins General Merchandise (25,000 MT).
Other firms' import orders would only range from about 1,000 MT to 15,000 MT of rice.
It was in November when the National Food Authority (NFA) Council, the highest policy making body of NFA, forged the guidelines on “out quota importation” on rice, which would also have the same outcome as the Rice Tariffication Bill.
The guidelines came a day before the bicameral conference committee approved the Rice Tariffication Bill, which seeks to replace the quantitative restriction (QR) on rice imports with a specific tariff rate.
When asked about the timing of the issuance of the guideline, Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol said the out-quota importation intends to immediately address the rising cost of rice at that time.
"The purpose of importation is to bring down the prices of rice.
"We will be very strict in the implementation of the evaluation on the financial capability of the importer, his warehousing capacity and his retailing capability," he added.
According to him, this importation program "will effectively weed out fly by night importers who would apply for permits and then would just sell it.”
In November, NFA awarded Thailand and Vietnam — the only countries with existing rice trade agreement with the Philippines — the remaining supply contracts for 203,000 MT of imported rice it was supposed to procure in 2018.
It marked the end of the series of importation that the NFA conducted for last year, which totaled to 1.25 million MT of rice, roughly half of which are set to arrive this year.
Where the NFA's out-quota importation program stands in a liberalized rice sector is still uncertain.
With Rice Tariffication Bill, the NFA will no longer be allowed to import and will instead rely solely on local palay procurement to boost its stocks.
Under the new rice importation regime, legitimate rice traders can now import rice sans NFA permits, provided they secure a sanitary and phytosanitary import clearance from the Department of Agriculture's (DA) Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI) and pay the appropriate tariff to the Bureau of Customs.
National Economic Development Authority (NEDA), however, noted that NFA can still sell cheap rice but to very targeted markets. It will also have to focus on ensuring sufficient buffer stocks to address emergency situations.