MANILA: The Philippines is expected to import more rice next year as local production will still not be enough to cover the national demand, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) said.
In the latest report of the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS), the Philippines was seen to import 1.3 million metric tons (MT) of rice next year, lower than the original import target of 1.7 million MT.
This year’s rice import level, however, is 38 percent higher than the 800,000 MT of rice that entered the country in 2016.
“Increased output is expected as a result of favorable weather conditions and increased use of high yielding varieties. There were noticeably fewer intense typhoons that passed through major rice production areas compared to previous years,” USDA said.
The lower importation is expected as production of milled rice next year is seen increasing two percent to 11.97 million MT from 11.68 million MT. This will be complemented by yield slightly improving to 3.95 MT per hectare.
Local corn production is seen to slightly improve by 1.2 percent to 8.2 million MT. According to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), the country’s import dependency ratio (IDR) abruptly decreased to 4.99 percent last year from 11.07 percent in 2015.
Rice imports fell 54.71 percent to $278.87 million in 2016. In terms of volume, shipments plunged by 58.87 percent to 609,360 MT.
