TWO business leaders yesterday said the government must give businessmen a free hand to import rice to prevent a rice supply crisis that is already brewing in Metro Manila.
Robert Go, former president of the Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry and governor of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said giving business owners the permit to import rice can create competition, which is the easiest way to avert any crisis that could lead to higher prices.
“Anything that creates competition will surely bring down rice prices and will prevent people involved in rice cartels from hoarding,” he said.
The Philippine Government, one of the world’s biggest rice importers, assured a jittery public last week that it is taking steps to secure enough supplies, amid surging prices and tight stocks worldwide.
Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap said there was no rice shortage and that President Arroyo has approved a proposal to augment the agriculture department’s budget for rice production.
The plan calls for the planting of an additional 600,000 hectares of rice during the rainy season in the country’s 10 poorest provinces, and another 500,000 hectares in other provinces. Harvests expected in the months ahead also will beef up supplies, he said.
Yap said the government’s rice reserve would last 57 days and that the National Food Authority (NFA) was receiving additional supplies from the international market.
Delivery, deliverance
“We’re going to get additional support,” he said.
The NFA said it has secured 500,000 metric tons of rice from Vietnam and Thailand for delivery next month, part of 2.1 metric million tons to be imported this year.
Rising demand from the Middle East and Africa has hiked the price of rice in Vietnam and Thailand—the world’s top exporters— to up to US$500 per metric ton, a 25 percent jump from a month ago, the agriculture department said.
Eduardo Lecciones, who retired as Department of Agriculture 7 director last January, said farmers only produce 39 percent of the rice consumed in Central Visayas.
If the government limits the importations with the NFA, the consumers will suffer from high prices, he added.
Flooding the market with imported rice will create competition and the prices will naturally go down, Go added.
Global challenge
Another businessman who refused to be named said the rice crisis is a global phenomenon, and it has placed the government between a rock and a hard place.
The businessman, who used to help farmers’ cooperatives import rice in the past, said that problems with rice supply are compounded by the fact that Vietnam, the number one supplier to the Philippines, is about to ban further exports of the staple.
While there is still supply from Thailand, the price of rice has climbed from $400 to $800 per metric ton, or equivalent to 20 sacks.
Both Go and the other businessman believed that allowing free trade on rice and removing tariffs on imported rice will partly alleviate the problem.
Meanwhile, Ricky Gantuangco, vice president of the Philippine Chamber of Customs Brokers Association Inc., said he has submitted to Rep. Antonio Cuenco (Cebu City, south district) his proposal to abolish the National Food Authority (NFA) and give the business sector the authority to import rice.
Gantuangco said the NFA has failed to stop a cartel of seven big-time businessmen or to provide quality rice to Filipinos. (EOB/With AP)
