MANILA, Philippines — For the first time this year, the country’s rice inventory surpassed year-ago levels, inching up by nearly two percent in November while month-on-month stocks almost doubled, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said.
Latest data from the PSA showed that total rice inventory stood at three million metric tons (MT) last month, 89 percent higher than the 1.59 million MT recorded in October.
This is also 1.4 percent more than last year’s volume stock of 2.96 million MT.
The PSA did not specify the number of days the stock inventory of Filipinos’ main staple would be sufficient.
But based on the average daily consumption of Filipinos of 32,000 MT, the current inventory is sufficient for 94 days.
The National Food Authority, meanwhile, has already improved its inventory following the additional incentive in their buying price. This allowed the agency to buy more palay this main harvest season.
The 47,000 MT of imported rice started arriving while the last batch of 203,000 MT and 500,000 MT were bid out and would spill over into next year’s stocks.
The main harvest season is already in full blast in major areas, which will help augment the country’s inventory.
Retail prices of rice have slowly stabilized following the imposition of the suggested retail price (SRP).
Meanwhile, households had more than half of total inventories at 52 percent, while commercial warehouses held about 45 percent. Supplies from NFA depositories cornered three percent of the total.
On a monthly basis, stocks in households and commercial warehouses surged 81 percent and 122 percent respectively, while NFA depositories were reduced 19 percent due to the immediate release in the market.