Published : Friday, March 30, 2012 00:00 Article Views : 318 Written by
: JAMES KONSTANTIN GALVEZ
State-run National Food Authority (NFA) on Thursday said it may award to
some 114 traders and farmers' cooperatives the rights to import about
380,000 metric tons of rice, tax free.
Angelito Banayo, NFA administrator, said 114 out of the 364
pre-qualified bidders who participated in two separate auctions will be
given permits to import rice under the agency's tax expenditure subsidy
program.
Under the TES, both private traders and farmers' cooperatives can import
rice at zero tariff in exchange for service fees paid to the grains agency.
A total of 19 traders will be allowed to import a maximum of 10,000
metric tons of rice each, while 95 farmers' cooperatives and
organizations will be given rights to import a maximum of 2,000 MT each.
NFA earlier said it expects to earn as much as P2.1 billion from the
380,000 MT of rice to be imported this year.
It also expects a record income of P1.14 billion from the winning
bidders' service fee.
In 2011, the grains agency earned as much as P1.53 billion for the
importation of 660,000 metric tons of rice at an average bid of P2.31 or
P115.50 per 50 kilograms.
In the past two years, the allocation for the Private Sector Financed
(PSF) importation was done through an open bid on the service fees. In
2010, the PSF allocation was done via a first come-first served basis at
a pegged service fee of P25 per bag or P0.50 per kilogram of rice imported.
Under this practice, Banayo said that government only earned a measly
P110 million for the 2010 PSF imports of 220,000 metric tons. Meanwhile
the government, through NFA, bought 2.25 million metric tons of imported
rice.
The volume imported under the PSF program was at 660,000 MT (600,000 MT
for the open portion and 60,000 MT for farmer's cooperatives). NFA
buying was at 200,000 metric tons for a total of tax-subsidized
importation of 860,000 metric tons, or about a third of the 2010 volumes.
For 2012 the PSF volume was reduced to 380,000 MT (190,000 MT for the
open and 190,000 MT for the farmers' cooperatives), while NFA will
procure 120,000 metric tons more, for a total of 500,000 metric tons,
equivalent to only a fifth of the record 2010 high volumes.
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