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Philippines invites bids for 500,000 tonne rice imports

The National Food Authority (NFA) of the Philippines is inviting tenders for the supply of 500,000 tonnes of rice through an open auction scheduled for August 27.
The National Food Authority (NFA) of the Philippines is inviting tendersfor the supply of 500,000 tonnes of rice through an open auctionscheduled for August 27.

In a notice recentlyposted on its website, the agency said that it has allotted around 10.27billion pesos (235 million USD) for importing the amount of ricebetween September and November in order to deal with a decline in thenational stockpile.

Accordingly, the NFA will opentender for five lots of 100,000 tonnes each, in which qualifiedsuppliers can bid for a minimum quantity of 50,000 tonnes with thebiding fee of 75,000 pesos (around 1,712 USD) per lot.

The rice meant for imports should be 25 percent broken, long grain,well-milled and harvested during January and June 2014.

The additional import will bring the daily national stock to 10,000tonnes in order to prepare for possible disasters and reduce localretail prices of the grain, said Francis Pangilinan, Chairman of the NFAcouncil and Presidential Assistant on Food Security and AgriculturalModernisation.-VNA
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