DA recommends price cap on imported rice

The Department of Agriculture (DA) is eyeing to impose a retail price cap on imported rice as the agency monitored an “unreasonable” increase in prices, pointing to a supposed exploitation of the global oil shock situation amid the Middle East conflict.

In an interview with reporters on Wednesday, Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. said the agency monitored that several retailers are selling imported rice at P55 to P58 per kilo.

“The price of imported rice should not go beyond P50,”  Tiu Laurel said, adding “hindi reasonable ‘yung pagtaas ng imported rice dahil ang cost niyan mababa pa (the price increase in imported rice is not reasonable since the cost of importing it is still low).”

“Definitely may nanamantala that’s why nagrekomenda kami na mag-impose ng price cap on imported rice… pinag- aaralan pa ‘yan ng legal,” the Agriculture chief said.

(Definitely some could be taking advantage, that’s why we recommended to impose a price cap on imported rice… that is being studied by our legal team.)

Tiu Laurel said the DA will submit its official recommendation to Malacañang within the day. 

“But it has to go through several agencies, the Price Council…,” he said.

Among interventions being done by the DA to prevent rice price shock is to make available P45 to P48 per kilo rice in several markets.

“For now, it is available in 36 markets in Metro Manila and we are expanding that in Metro Cebu,” Tiu Laurel said.

The Agriculture chief said a price cap is not being considered to be imposed on locally produced rice to protect the livelihoods of local farmers, especially during the harvest season. — RSJ, GMA Integrated News