MANILA, Sept 13 (Reuters) - The Philippines' food security
agency will "flood" the domestic rice market with an additional
180,000 tonnes from its stockpiles within four weeks, officials
said on Friday, in a drastic move to further bring down prices
of the staple grain.
This may put further pressure on inflation, which last month
eased to its weakest in nearly three years, and prompt local
rice importers to slow down purchases.
The Southeast Asian nation, which is one of the world's
biggest rice importers and often buys grains from its neighbours
Vietnam and Thailand, lifted a two-decade-old cap on purchases
early this year.
The National Food Authority (NFA) will release 3.6 million
50-kg bags of rice from its warehouses and sell them nationwide,
the Department of Agriculture said in a statement.
The NFA Council, headed by Agriculture Secretary William
Dar, "directed the NFA to flood Metro Manila and other markets
nationwide with 27 pesos ($0.52) per kg of rice", the department
said, much cheaper than the grains sold by retailers.
Retail rice prices in the Philippines have fallen by 10%-13%
from a year earlier to 38-42 pesos a kg for regular- and
well-milled grains, as importers began shipping in huge volumes
after the two-decade-old cap on purchases was lifted.
Dar, however, said prices have not gone down as much as they
should, and sought an investigation into whether importers are
hoarding stocks.
With Dar's directive to the agency, NFA Spokeswoman Rebecca
Olarte said the government is sending out a "subliminal message"
to rice importers to also release their stocks at a faster rate.
The NFA will use the 4.9 billion pesos proceeds from the
rice sale to procure fresh crop from local farmers, at 2 pesos
higher than the government's support price of 17 pesos per kg,
Olarte said.
($1 = 51.7500 pesos)