Rice prices stable

CEBU, Philippines - Prices of well-milled rice in major markets in Metro Cebu are now stabilized, based on the price monitoring made by the National Food Authority-7 yesterday.

NFA-7 spokeswoman Lucy Rosales said that the monitoring team saw the prices of well-milled rice at P29 to P32 per kilo.

“It is safe to say nga stabilized na ang presyo sa atong mga well-milled rice kay previously niabot man na og P34 per kilo,” said Rosales.

However prices of premium rice, which is seasonal, still remained between P42 per kilo to P45 per kilo depending on the brand. NFA rice remains at P27 per kilo.

Rosales said that currently, NFA-7 has a buffer stock of 1.3 million bags of rice, wherein consumption is good even up to December of this year.

“We have more than enough stocks of NFA rice for Central Visayas. Wala’y angay kabalak-an ang publiko,” Rosales said.

She added that 20,000 bags of local rice from Mindoro arrived in Cebu last week, also as added buffer stock.

Rosales further said that the lean months will be over by August and harvest season will begin by September.

“Hapit na ang harvest season and we expect nga ang mga presyo sa commercial rice mohinay-hinay na sad og ubos,” she further said.

Earlier, a total of 1,080,000 bags of imported rice from Vietnam arrived in Cebu to augment NFA’s buffer stock for food security.

Cebu City is one of the destination ports of NFA imported rice in the Visayas Region considering its existing modern port facilities that can handle voluminous rice shipments, she said.

The total volume of rice that is being imported by the NFA is allowed by the NFA Council under the government-to-government deal which covers the minimum access volume for rice under the World Trade Organization agreement.

Currently, the Philippine government has an existing rice agreement with Vietnam.

Meanwhile, in a separate statement, Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala said that DA’s partnership with farmers’ groups and the private sector has exceeded its self-imposed target of 100 metric tons of rice exports this year.

DA recently sent off 45 metric tons of aromatic rice to Singapore that is expected to satisfy the demands of 146,000 overseas Filipino workers, Singaporeans and foreign tourists there.

As of July 22, the country has already exported a total of 106.55 MT of premium and organic black rice varieties, including the recent 45-MT shipment to Singapore.

The previous shipments included 35 MT to Dubai, 15 MT to Kuwait and Hong Kong, and 11.55 MT to Germany, Hong Kong, Macau, Canada, and the Netherlands.

DA also expects to export another batch of 97 MT until yearend to Russia, Italy, the Middle East and the United States. —/BRP (FREEMAN)