Philippines to hold tender to import rice in January

The Philippines will hold a tender in the first or second week of January to buy up to 320,000 tonnes of rice due to damage to crops caused by four storms in two weeks, a senior government official said on Monday. The four storms battered wide swathes of the main island of Luzon, the country's rice bowl, last week and the week before. More than 1,000 people were killed or missing in landslides and flooding triggered by the storms.
The government said it was considering buying rice from four countries. Thailand, China, Australia and the United States have asked the government for a fixed rice import volume.
"We are scheduled to bid in the first week or second week of January, 320,000 tonnes," Gregorio Tan, administrator of state agency National Food Authority, told a news conference.
Tan said the first tranche of rice imports is expected to arrive by February 28 while the remaining imports should be shipped in by March and April.
The Philippines, one of Asia's largest rice buyers, usually holds tenders to buy rice in the second quarter each year for delivery in the third quarter, the lean season in local production.
"We feel that the comfortable stock level is still there, but we're still importing earlier than the usual schedule so we are assured of supply," Tan said.
The agriculture department estimates that the typhoons destroyed more than 100,000 tonnes of rice crops and over 300,000 tonnes of corn.
It expects to import 900,000 tonnes of rice in 2005, down from 985,000 tonnes this year, to fill a gap in production due to the typhoons and the mild El Nino drought phenomenon expected to hit local farms in the first to second quarter of 2005.
The government said its rice harvest in the first quarter may drop by 2.2 percent from year-ago levels while harvests in the fourth quarter may fall 1 percent from the same period in 2003 as the typhoons have delayed harvests by one to two months.
But Manila said it is keeping its 4.85 to 5.0 percent farm output growth target this year from 3.77 percent in 2003 despite the typhoon damages to crops and farm lands.