THE National Food Authority (NFA) said its warehouses have received 457,747.577 metric tons (MT) worth of imported rice out of the 500,000 MT authorized in the agency’s last year of import operations, consisting of the 25% broken grade of well-milled long grain white rice.
The NFA said the shipment level as of March 19 included bad orders of 466.263 MT and short-landed rice shipped but not yet arrived) of 731.660 MT, with a balance of 23,054.500 MT.
Last year’s rice shipments are to be the last handled by the NFA before the effectivity of the Rice Tariffication Law, which relegates it to buying domestic rice to maintain a buffer stock while leaving imports to the private sector.
Of the rice purchased in government-to-government deals, the NFA has received 201,115.084 MT from Thailand and Vietnam, out of the 203,000 MT purchased.
Bad orders amounted to 375.835 MT, 321.081 MT remained short-landed. Balance stood at 1,188 MT.
Rex C. Estoperez, NFA Assistant Director for Marketing Operations, said in a phone interview Thursday that the remaining balances — those which are not en route — are “minimal.”
The Rice Tariffication Law came into force on March 5.
According to the NFA, its domestic procurement amounted to 232,447 bags of palay, or unmilled rice, in the first two months of 2019, with purchases up 2,100% year-on-year.
The NFA hopes to buy at least 7,780,000 bags of palay in 2019. — Reicelene Joy N. Ignacio

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