CABANATUAN CITY – Central Luzon is to receive 525,000 bags of the 725,000 bags of rice from Vietnam which
unloading at the Subic Bay Freeport will be completed before the end of this month, the National Food Authority
(NFA) reported Friday.
According to the NFA regional office here, 500,000 bags or 25,000 metric tons have arrived via MV Voge Fiesta
while MV Vinh Phuoc will unload “later this month” some 225,000 or 11,250 mt. This ensures “sufficient supply of rice for 2014,” according to the agency.
Region 2 shall receive 200,000 bags. NFA-Region 3 Director Amadeo De Guzman said the imported rice from Vietnam is part of the 500,000 metric tons additional imported rice sought by the agency through the government- to-government import scheme.
The Vietnam rice is meant to augment the current rice stocks which were badly affected due to the successive calamities that hit the country in 2013. “It will augment the NFA’s food security buffer stocks which were depleted due to the abnormally huge requirement for relief operations after the devastation caused by Typhoon Santi and Supertyphoon Yolanda last year,” De Guzman said.
De Guzman also said that the rice importation is coupled with an aggressive procurement of locally produced rice to build enough supply that will stand with the region’s rice consumption for this year. He said such stocks are all of highest quality because they regularly conduct monitoring of their stocks based on the required regulations and standards.
“Our current policy is that we do not store rice for more than six months, therefore I am assuring the consuming public that our present inventory of local rice stocks, which were recently milled using our newly-procured palay, are all of good quality. The same goes for the imported rice, since the stocks need to pass NFA’s quality standards,” De Guzman added.
