GMANEWS online; 05/03/2011 | 12:26 AM

The results of the National Food Authority (NFA) rice rebidding on Monday exceeded the actual bid volume of 205,052 metric tons (MT), yielding 21 post-qualified bidders and bids that totaled 306,298 MT.

“This only shows that the private sector are gung-ho in importing rice," said NFA bids and awards committee member Gilbert Lauengco.

The NFA conducted the rebid after several post-qualified bidders failed to import the remaining volume from the 600,000 MT bidded out to the private sector in March.

Ten bidders from the March bid submitted suspicious documents, prompting the NFA committee to refrain from giving awarding their rice import allocation. In mid-April, the agency announced that it will rebid of 120,000 MT after it received dubious documents srom some of the private sector traders.

Twenty-six bidders showed up during Monday’s rebid with only 21 qualified to bring in imported rice. The bidders are would still go through a post-evaluation to determine if the shipments are indeed for commercial distribution.

The government is still open to hold another bidding should the Monday’s redib fail, but only as a last resort, said Lauengco.

For the year, rice importation to the country has been limited to 860,000 MT of which 660,000 MT was allocated to the private sector despite a recommendation from the Inter-Agency Committee on Rice and Corn to set the import volume at 1 million to 1.5 million MT.
The Agriculture Department meanwhile clarified that importation will not go beyond 860,000 MT as a robust local harvest is expected for the first six months.

In February, the department said that the government plans to import less than one million MT for 2011, half that of the volume imported in 2010.

Dry-season cropping is also expected to go beyond the 7.6-million MT target because of good weather and a better-than-expected harvest in rice-producing provinces.

Rice procurement has already reached 79,172 MT in the first four months of the year, according to the NFA. Based on the agency’s program for 2011, the government will buy as much as 870,000 MT of rice from farmers, representing 5 percent of the targeted paddy rice production of 17.4 million MT for the year. — (BC/PE/VS, GMA News)

Source: NFA rebidding results exceed rice bid volume