Philippine President rules out additional rice imports

Philippine President Benigno Aquino III said Wednesday that the country is not importing additional rice despite crop losses from typhoons Nesat and Nalgae. The Philippine government has authorized the importation of 860, 000 tons of rice for this year. Aquino told a briefing the country's ample stocks and the bumper harvest in the first half of this year is enough to offset the crop losses. Philippine rice production in the first half rose 14.4 percent to 7.57 million tons. The Bureau of Agricultural Statistics reported that the Philippines has a total rice inventory of 2.41 million tons as of September 1 which is good for 71 days of rice consumption. According to the Department of Agriculture, paddy rice damaged by six typhoons which ravaged the Philippines from June to October reached 902,285 tons.