The Philippines is poised to not only remain as the world's No. 1 rice importer for the third-consecutive year but also buy from abroad a new record-high 5.1 million metric tons (MT) during the current marketing period, according to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).
The USDA-Foreign Agricultural Service's (FAS) newest "Grain: World Markets and Trade" report on Nov. 8 further hiked estimated Philippine rice imports for marketing year (MY) 2024-2025 from 4.9 million MT last month due to "growing consumption, as rice is an important staple" in the country.
The USDA also increased its rice consumption forecast for the country to 17.2 million MT in MY 2024-2025 from 17.1 million MT previously.
According to the USDA's website, the Philippines' MY for milled rice begins in July of the current year until June of the next year, which means MY 2024-2025 refers to the July 2024-to-June 2025 period.
In the preceding MY 2023-2024, the USDA's updated estimates showed that the Philippines imported five million MT of rice, higher than the earlier projection of 4.7 million MT.
The USDA noted that Vietnamese rice exporters benefit from "burgeoning" Philippine demand.
"The Philippines is importing record amounts due to a combination of population growth and reduced import tariffs [under] Executive Order (EO) No. 62. Thus far in 2024, the Philippines relied on Vietnam for more than 80 percent of imports," the USDA said.
"The Philippines is expected to remain a primary destination for Vietnamese exports due to a combination of logistical advantages, competitive prices, and rising consumer demand for high-quality rice," it added.
Despite lower yields there, projections for Vietnam's rice exports were jacked up by the USDA to a record 8.9 million MT (from 8.6 million MT previously) for 2024 and 7.35 million MT (from 7.2 million MT previously) for 2025, mainly on the back of expected bigger demand from the Philippines.
As a whole, surging Philippine purchases are among the growth drivers that the USDA cited for higher global rice imports this and next year.
If the USDA's forecasts would happen, the Philippines shall be the world's largest rice importer since MY 2022-2023, when it sourced 3.9 million MT of the food staple overseas and dislodged China from the top spot.
Philippine milled production has been decreasing from 12.625 million MT in MY 2022-2023 to 12.325 million MT in 2023-2024 and 12.3 million MT in 2024-2025.
On the other hand, rice consumption in the country has been rising from 14.8 million MT in MY 2020-2021 to 15.4 million MT in 2021-2022, 16.1 million MT in 2022-2023, and 16.6 million MT in 2023-2024.
The USDA kept its projected Philippine ending stocks—rice inventory at the end of the MY—at 3.703 million MT in the current MY, up from 2023-2024's 3.603 million MT.
In the same USDA-FAS report, the Philippines' corn imports were forecasted to hit a record 1.65 million MT in MY 2024-2025 because of more exports from Myanmar, up from the previous estimate of 1.35 million MT for the current MY and above the previous record of 1.6 million MT in 2023-2024.
While "lower world corn exports and a small recovery in production are moderating growth" of Philippine imports, the USDA said demand here "continues to grow primarily due to higher use of corn feed by the livestock and poultry industry, as well as higher industrial use for snacks and starch."
"However, production of corn in the Philippines has not kept pace with rising demand. Producers have been hampered by pest infestations, typhoons, and a lack of land in recent years," the USDA pointed out.
"In 2023-2024, production was 8.1 million tons, the lowest volume since 2019-2020. As a result, larger imports were necessary to meet domestic demand—reaching 16 percent of total supplies in 2023-2024, versus four percent in 2019-2020," it added. The USDA expects the country's corn output to rebound to 8.3 million MT in MY 2024-2025.
As tariffs slapped on imported corn have been slashed since mid-2022, the USDA noted that "overall imports surged 56 percent in 2022-2023 and 68 percent in 2023-2024, with non-ASEAN [Association of Southeast Asian Nations] exporters augmenting volumes."
Citing data from the Bureau of Customs (BOC) and the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), the USDA said ASEAN member-states accounted for "virtually all" corn imports in 2021-2022, even as neighboring Southeast Asian countries lost one-third of its market share to Brazil in 2022-2023, and further reduced import volumes to half of our country's total in 2023-2024 no thanks to a 35-percent jump in Argentinian exports.