MANILA: Philippine authorities are keeping an eye on the country’s rice supply and will decide shortly if more imports of the staple grain are needed after two typhoons hit major rice-producing provinces this month, an official said on Tuesday.
The country’s grains procurement agency National Food Authority (NFA) has a stand-by authority to import another 250,000 tons of rice in addition to the 250,000 tons it bought recently from Vietnam and Thailand, said Diwa Guinigundo, the deputy governor of the country’s central bank.
The central bank is represented in the NFA Council, the inter-agency panel that approves rice importation.
The council “will be monitoring the situation within the month and on the basis of our assessment, decide accordingly,” Guinigundo told Reuters, without giving any further details on the timing of the NFA’s next rice import deal.
The central bank is closely watching domestic rice prices, which account for 9 percent of the consumer basket, making the commodity an “important determinant of inflation,” Guinigundo said in separate interview with local news channel.
