RICE imports that are accumulating at Manila ports cannot yet be released as consignees still have to pay the required taxes and complete other requirements, the Bureau of Customs (BoC) said during the weekend.
“[T]he rice shipments are ready for release once consignees fulfill their responsibilities, and the accumulation at the ports is not due to any delay caused by congestion,” the BoC said in statement responding to the Department of Agriculture (DA) chief’s claim that port congestion was delaying releases and were keeping rice prices high.
The bureau said that at the Port of Manila, 237 out of 258 containers of rice in the yard had already been cleared after duty and tax payments. The remaining 21 containers, meanwhile, had their goods declarations filed on Friday and were still being processed.
At the Manila International Container Port, 630 containers are still in the yard with 492 cleared for release and 138 pending duty and tax payments.
Customs chief Bienvenido Rubio said that none of the shipments had exceeded a limit set in the Customs Modernization and Tariff Act, which states that importers must claim their shipments within 30 days of paying duties and taxes or these will be declaredabandoned.
“The Bureau of Customs remains committed to ensuring that the release of rice shipments follows the legal procedures without unnecessary delays,” Rubio said.
“We urge consignees to act promptly to avoid further disruptions. The BoC stands ready to enforce abandonment proceedings as mandated by law if goods remain unclaimed.”
As this developed, latest DA data showed that rice imports had topped 3.0 million metric tons (MT) as of mid-September, higher than the 2.6 million MT recorded a year earlier.
In a report, the DA’s Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI) said from September 1 to 12 alone, rice shipments from abroad had reached 117,912 MT, while 387,862 MT came in a month earlier.
Rice imports of the first week of the month were already at 2.9 million MT, the BPI reported last week.
The increase followed the government having slashed the tariff on rice imports to 15 percent from 35 percent in June to lower prices of the staple and keep a lid on inflation.
Last week, Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. said port congestion, particularly unloading delays that would hike shipping costs, was hampering significant decreases in rice prices.
“There’s no shortage but it (slow unloading) might drive prices of rice not to go down that soon,” he said.
Tiu Laurel urged the Philippine Ports Authority to expedite the release of nearly a thousand container vans filled with imported rice, many said to have been sitting in Manila ports for months.
The DA’s latest price monitoring report showed that imported well-milled rice currently sells at P45 to P55 per kilo, while regular milled rice is at P42 to P50 per kilo.
Vietnam remained the top rice exporter to the Philippines, having shipped over 2.36 million MT or around 78 percent of the total imports.
Next was Thailand at 394,445 MT, followed by Pakistan with 157,044 MT and Myanmar with 68,007 MT.
The remaining volumes came from India, China, Japan, Cambodia, Italy and Spain.
In 2023, inbound shipments of the staple totaled 3.6 million MT, down 5.9 percent from 2022’s record high of 3.82 million MT.
The DA does not expect this year’s imports to exceed the 2023 volume.
The United States Department of Agriculture, on the other hand, expects 2024 Philippine rice imports to hit 4.6 million MT.
Tiu Laurel has said that this was unlikely to happen.
The Philippines nonetheless still ranks as the world’s top rice importer.
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