By Madelaine B. Miraflor

The Philippines, one of the world’s largest rice importers, is set to purchase 500,000 metric tons (MT) of rice from five foreign companies, who posted the lowest bids during the open tender importation that the National Food Authority (NFA) conducted yesterday.

For the first time in the series of importation that NFA conducted in the past months, the agency was successful in bidding out the supply contracts for the 500,000 MT of 25 percent brokens, well-milled, long grain white rice it has been authorized to import.

For a reference price of US$470 per MT, NFA received bid offers from as low as US$418.65 per MT to a high of 459.30 per MT.

The companies who posted the lowest bids during the bidding are Olam International, Tan Long Group Joint Stock Company, Shwe Wah Yaung Agriculture Production Co. Ltd., Asia Golden Rice Co. Ltd., and Thai Capital Crops Co. Ltd.

The subject volume is divided into nine lots with 14 designated discharge ports, including Subic (118,000 MT), Manila (75,000 MT), La Union (65,000 MT), Batangas (40,000 MT), General Santos City (32,500 MT), Tabaco (30,000 MT), Cagayan De Oro (26,700 MT), Cebu (25,000 MT), Iloilo (20,000 MT), Tacloban (20,000 MT), Zamboanga (17,300 MT), Davao (12,500 MT), Surigao (10,000 MT), and Bacolod (8,000 MT).

Olam International was qualified to supply the Philippines with 210,000 MT of rice after successfully posting bids for four lots namely La Union, Tabaco, Batangas, and Manila. It was followed by Tan Long, which will bring in additional 118,000 MT of rice into the country.

Asia Golden is set to supply the country with 99,000 MT of rice, Shwe Wah with 28,000 MT, and Thai Capital with 45,000 MT.

These firms will source their supply from Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar, India, and Pakistan. The first half of 250,000 should be delivered not later than December 31, while the remaining 250,000 MT should arrive in the country not later than January 31, 2019.

NFA Deputy Administrator Judy Dansal said “the notice of awards will be given within the week and we will look into post qualification documents.”

The budget for this importation was increased to P12.8 billion from P12.2 billion

During the last time the NFA conducted an open tender importation, which was held on October 18, the agency failed to award all the import contracts as most of the bidders found it hard to meet the country’s reference price.

With majority of the bid offers exceeding the NFA’s approved budget of US$428.18 per MT, only 47,000 MT of the 250,000 MT worth of rice import contracts were awarded to three foreign suppliers who offered prices lower than the approved budget.

NFA then attempted to secure offers for the supply of the remaining volume of 203,000 MT of rice through a government-to government (G2G) importation yesterday but also failed. This remaining volume is yet to be bid out.