THE Philippines is expecting to import not more than 500,000 metric tons (MT) of rice next year or nearly half of this year’s imports, Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala said on Monday.

Asked how much the government would expect to import next year, Alcala told reporters after the Gawad Saka Awards at the Palace Rizal Hall that “by next year, we are expecting that we will not be importing more than 500,000 MT. If the yield of the wet season crop is better, we might be importing less than 500,000.”

This year, the Philippines imported 860,000 MT of rice–a third of the importation in 2010–which Alcala reiterated “will be sufficient enough” even if there is bad weather.  He said the country has existing memoranda of understanding with rice-exporters in the region, such as Thailand, Cambodia and Laos for rice supply, if necessary.

In his speech, President Aquino said Alcala had assured him of attaining rice self-sufficiency by 2013 so the Philippines would not have to keep on relying on its rice-exporting neighbors to satisfy its demands.

“I am looking at the data that he has submitted to me and he said that after [improvements in] irrigation, we will have 1.56 million tons of palay in 2012,” Aquino said.  He said computing the conversion of palay to rice, which is 65 percent, 1.56 million tons of palay would be equivalent to 1.01 million tons rice.

“We are short by 1.3 million tons of rice, so when we subtracted 1.3 [million] to 1.01 [million], it comes to 286,000 tons. That is the amount that we have to fill in, in 2012,” he said.

In his interview with reporters, Alcala said the government is hoping to begin its vegetable exports to Japan and Singapore before the end of the first semester, or around June.