Philippine rice stocks inventory as of May 1 declined by 7.5 percent to 2.5 million metric tons (MMT) from 2.7 MMT recorded a year ago, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported.
However, the PSA, in its monthly stock report published recently, said May’s rice stocks inventory grew by 5.8 percent to 2.5 MMT from April’s level of 2.4 MMT.
The PSA also said the bulk, or about 55.1 percent of the rice inventory as of May 1, was stored in households, while 35.5 percent were in commercial warehouses. The remaining 9.3 percent were stored in National Food Authority (NFA) warehouses.
Data also showed that total rice inventory held by households during the said period reached 1.42 MMT while commercial warehouses and NFA accounted for 918,670 metric tons (MT) and 241,130 MT, respectively.
Relative to the previous year’s level, the PSA said decrements in rice stocks were noted in all sectors. In the households, it went down by 6.2 percent, commercial warehouses by 4 percent and NFA depositories by 24.2 percent.
Month-on-month, rice stocks in the households dropped by 2.7 percent, while stocks in commercial warehouses soared by 24.5 percent. Stocks in NFA depositories remained almost the same from their previous month’s level.
In the same report, the PSA said the country’s total corn inventory as of May 1 fell by 1.6 percent to 826,730 MT from 840,520 MT recorded last year.
In contrast, PSA said May’s corn inventory increased by 15.8 percent to 826,730 MT from the previous month’s level of 713,680 MT.
The agency said the bulk or about 65.5 percent of the total corn stocks inventory was held by commercial warehouses while the remaining 34.5 percent were in households.
It added that total corn stocks held by households reached 285,020 MT while the remaining 541,710 MT were stored in commercial warehouses.
“Relative to the previous month’s record, corn stocks in households and commercial warehouses went up by 10.4 percent and 18.9 percent, respectively,” the agency said.
“Year-on-year, corn stock in the households rose by 81.3 percent. However, stocks in the commercial warehouses dropped by 20.7 percent,” it added.