27th June,2018 Unedited Version
Daily Global Regional Local Rice ENewsletter www.riceplusmagazine.blogspot.com mujahid.riceplus@gmail.com NFA holds bidding for MAV rice imports By Jed Macapagal June 26, 2018 The National Food Authority (NFA) has conducted an auction for the service fee for the minimum access volume (MAV) rice importation program. The said process is being done in order to assure the price of rice that will be imported by the private sector under MAV will be competitive. NFA administrator Jason Aquino said at least 348 private corporations, cooperatives, and farmers organizations (FOs) participated in the bidding. Earlier, the NFA Council set the minimum bid price for the auction at P250 per metric tons (MT) with succeeding bid offers at increments of P250 per MT but was lowered to P100 per MT and increment of P10 per MT. However, the agency clarified that only those which applied, pre-qualified, and were awarded eligibility to bid (ETB) by them may submit bids. Under the importation guidelines, rice traders are allowed to source from countries with a specific quota (CSQ) or from other rice-producing countries. For the volume per origin, Thailand and Vietnam again have the highest maximum volume set for countries with specific quota at 293,100 MT each. China, India and Pakistan were given 50,000 MT limit each, followed by Australia with 15,000 MT, and El Salvador with 4,000 MT. Rice imports from omnibus origin were limited to 50,000 MT. This will fulfill the importation of 805,200 MT of rice under the MAV scheme of the World Trade Organization (WTO). The rice importation will only be limited to local importers composed of corporations, partnerships, sole proprietorship,