THE government’s tariff collections from rice imports in the first quarter of the year rose by 9.2 percent to P4.29 billion from P3.92 billion in the same period last year.
Bureau of Customs (BOC) data shown by Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III during the Sulong Pilipinas forum on Monday showed 0.606 million kilograms of rice imports entered the country from January to March this year.
Based on separate BOC data obtained by the BusinessMirror, rice import volume for the first quarter of the year slid by 6.37 percent to 605,540 metric tons (MT) from 646,747 MT recorded in the same period last year.
For the months of January and February, rice tariff collection by the BOC went up by 58.5 percent and 37.9 percent year-on-year, respectively. Meanwhile, rice import volume climbed by 29 percent year-on-year in January and 21.2 percent in February.
Unlike the first two months of the year, rice import volume in March declined by 53.8 percent to 120,560 MT from 260,964 MT in the same month a year ago. Rice tariff collection in the same month also dropped by 47.8 percent year-on-year to P849.32 million from P1.63 billion in 2020.
Tariffs collected from rice imports are used to fund the six-year P10-billion annual Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (RCEF) to bankroll programs that provide farmers with high-quality seeds, machinery, easier credit access, and relevant training. This is meant to improve their productivity and become competitive.
Should annual tariff revenues from rice imports exceed P10 billion, the Rice Tariffication Law mandates earmarking the fund by Congress—and included in the national budget of the following year—for financial assistance to palay farmers, titling of agricultural lands, an expanded crop insurance program on rice, and crop diversification.
During his speech on Monday, Dominguez said the BOC has already collected a total of P31.9 billion in rice import tariffs since the Rice Tariffication Law took effect in March 2019.
“The law ensures that farmers benefit directly from import tariffs by providing at least 10 billion pesos each year for mechanization, high-quality seeds, access to credit, and training. Since the law’s effectivity, the Bureau of Customs has collected a total of 31.9 billion pesos in rice import tariffs, which is funding the modernization of our agricultural sector,” he said.
Last year, the government collected P15.47 billion in rice tariffs from 2.38 million metric tons (MMT).
In 2019, Customs collected P12.3 billion in rice tariffs from 2.03 MMT of rice imports from March to December following passage of the law.
The Rice Tariffication law, Dominguez said, paved the way for the opening up of the Philippine rice market and lowered the price of the country’s staple. Without the law, Dominguez said the country would have experienced even higher inflation rates and seasonal rice shortages.
Rice contributed only one-tenth of one percentage point to the country’s inflation rate in March this year versus its one-percentage-point share at the height of the 2018 inflation spike, he noted.
“Today’s Filipino consumer enjoys an average reduction of 8 pesos per kilo compared to the peak of rice prices in 2018. Consumers also have a wider variety of rice choices now. As a result, rice is no longer the main contributor to our overall inflation rate,” he said.
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