Philippines Beat China As World’s Biggest Rice Importer
PHILIPPINES – The Philippines has now become the biggest importer of rice in 2019 after it beat China with record-high imports.
This year, the Philippines is poised to import about three million metric tons (MT) of imported rice. China, on the other hand, is importing 2.5 million MT.
Earlier projections for China’s imports were estimated at about 3.15 million MT. But, due to an abundance of domestic supply, it lowered significantly.
With this, the Philippines has topped China in terms of importing rice. According to the United States Department of Agriculture- Foreign Agriculture Service Service (USDA-FAS) the two countries almost tied at 3.1 million MT.
Based on an article from Philstar, Rice imports to the country have almost quadrupled from 800,000 MT to three million. This actually represents 7% of all total global rice imports.
However, China’s share of rice imports in the global market got cut in half to merely five to six percent. This is despite their population skyrocketing.
China now has a population of about 1.4 billion residents. Compared to the Philippines with only 110 million residents.
This year Philippines’ importation increased by 58 percent higher than the 1.9 million MT worth of import from back in 2018. Adding to this, coming into 2019, the Rice Tarrification Act was approved.
This led to a significant increase in imports and have caused prices of domestic products to drop. Although, next year, the Philippines will tone down its rice importation.
This would be due to an oversupply of goods paired with improvements in local production. However, it would still remain above the five-year average.
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