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ONLY one
bidder tendered a bid for the importation of 500 metric
tons (MT) of rice out of the 141,440 MT the National
Food Authority (NFA) auctioned off Tuesday.
The lone
bidder, Uni-Agro, submitted its tender during
simultaneous auctions in Manila, Cebu and Davao.
The
auction failed to attract more importers from the
private sector even after the government had waived the
customary 50-percent tariff slapped on imported rice.
Instead, private importers will have to pay a
P2-per-kilo service fee.
But the
unprecedented increase in the price of imported rice,
which shot up to more than $1,000 per MT in recent
weeks, coupled with higher freight costs, are
discouraging the private sector from sourcing its own
rice requirements.
NFA
officials, however, refused to declare the auction a
failure.
“We are
not in a position to deny any company or groups the
opportunity to bring in rice for their own consumption,”
said NFA Assistant Secretary Conrado Ibañez.
The NFA
official explained that the lukewarm response to the
auction may be because the need for rice “may not be as
intense as several weeks ago.”
Earlier
this month, the NFA auctioned 163,000 MT of rice to the
private sector, of which only 21,560 MT was taken up by
25 farmer groups, private companies and individuals. The
remaining volume auctioned off Tuesday was the
country-specific quota volume committed by the
Philippines to the World Trade Organization in exchange
for the extension of its quantitative restriction on
rice.
The NFA
said it might schedule another tender for the private
sector by the second half of June for some 200,000 MT of
rice of omnibus origin. |
