Agriculture Secretary William Dar said the Department of Agriculture (DA) would no longer approve any rice import permit for this year, stressing that local production in stock as well as the volume of imports were already more than enough to meet the country’s demand.
In a phone interview on Friday, the agriculture chief said they were expecting rice imports to hit 2.3 million metric tons (MT) by year’s end, or 23-percent lower than last year’s record of 3 million MT.
It was also in 2019 when the Philippines was distinguished as the world’s biggest rice importer, edging out China with a population of 1.4 billion as it only imported 2.5 million MT of rice.
“We already stopped ap…
Keep on reading: No more rice import permits to be approved until year-end