Philippines DA: Max SRP for imported rice may drop further
The Philippines’ Department of Agriculture (DA) expects the suggested retail price (SRP) of imported rice to drop further from P49 per kilo, depending on global prices. Rice imports reached 414,137 metric tons in early 2025, with Vietnam supplying 71%. The DA urges local government units to help procure National Food Authority (NFA) stocks to ease storage constraints.
MANILA, Philippines — The maximum suggested retail price on imported rice can go lower than the recently implemented SRP of P49 per kilo, the Department of Agriculture (DA) said over the weekend.
“That (max SRP of P49 per kilo) can still go down. Of course, the cost of imported rice in the international market will have a big effect,” Agriculture Assistant Secretary and spokesman Arnel de Mesa said in a radio interview.
Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. said the landed cost of five-percent broken imported rice dropped to $490 per metric ton on Feb. 21, from $550 per metric ton.
Initially set at P58 per kilo on Jan. 20, the rice max SRP decreased to P55 per kilo on Feb. 5, P52 per kilo on Feb. 15 before it went down to P49 per kilo last Saturday.
At the same time, De Mesa admitted that it will be difficult to bring down the retail price of rice to P33 per kilo.
“We were able to bring down the price in Kadiwa outlets and National Food Authority (NFA) but with a little subsidy. At present, it is still difficult to reach that level in the markets but we think it is possible if we can continue to bring down the cost of production (of local farmers),” he said.
On the other hand, De Mesa said that the DA is still pushing for the return of the regular functions of the NFA to sell rice in the markets amid the difficulty of the agency to dispose of its stocks despite the declaration of food emergency.
“This is our limitation, if the warehouses are full, the NFA cannot procure palay as it cannot store the new stocks. We continue to ask the LGUs to facilitate the procurement of rice as the NFA has very limited options in relation to the disposal of its stocks. It only has the opportunity to release its stocks to participating LGUs because of the food emergency,” De Mesa added.
According to De Mesa, more than 70 LGUs vowed to participate in the procurement of NFA rice but only a few mayors bought stocks from the NFA.
Rice imports
The country’s rice imports for the first two months have reached 414,137 metric tons (MT), according to the Bureau of Plant Industry.
Based on BPI data, 71 percent or 293,084 MT of the total rice imports from Jan. 1 to Feb. 20, came from Vietnam.
Other sources of outsourced grains include Pakistan, 55,469 MT; Thailand, 47,965 MT; Myanmar, 10,795 MT: India, 4,823 MT; and South Korea, 2,000 MT.
Last year, the total rice imports reached an “all-time-high”of 4.8 million MT.
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Source : Philstar Global
