The Philippines forecasts minimum rice import requirement for 2021 at 1.69 million tonnes



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MANILA – The Philippines, the world’s largest rice importer, will need to bring in at least 1.69 million tons of its staple food this year to fully cover domestic needs, a government official said on Thursday.

The Southeast Asian country is downplaying the risks that the domestic rice supply will shrink this year, even as the global market is grappling with shipping delays and a global rush to store food.

Its minimum rice import requirement for 2021 is sufficient to ensure that the country, which purchases more than 90 percent of Vietnam’s import requirements, has the required 90-day reserve stock before the lean domestic harvest season that it begins in July, said Agriculture Undersecretary Ariel Cayanan. .

Despite crop losses due to strong typhoons in the latter part of 2020, the Philippines is projected to have achieved a record harvest of 19.44 million tonnes last year, Agriculture Secretary William Dar said earlier This week.

By 2021, the Philippines aims to produce 20.48 million tonnes of unmilled rice.

Last year’s imports were estimated at 2.3 million tonnes, compared with a record 2.9 million tonnes in 2019, when he removed a two-decade restriction on the size of annual imports.

Since 2019, importers have brought in higher volumes than actual requirements, helping to moderate food inflation but hurting local farmers.

The United States Department of Agriculture has projected that the Philippine rice import volume this year will reach 2.3 million tons.

Vietnam, the world’s third-largest rice exporter, recently bought the grain from rival India for the first time in decades after local prices rose to their highest level in nine years amid limited domestic supplies.

Cayanan described Vietnam’s move as a strategy to keep world prices high, but said its impact in the Philippines could be mitigated by improving the country’s level of rice self-sufficiency.

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