The Philippine National Food Authority has said that it would soon allocate import quotas to private companies to bring in another 200,000 MT of rice duty-free within this year.

Last week, the NFA held a similar tender involving an import quota of 163,000 MT of rice.
 
However, local companies, including farmers' organization, committed to import only 21,560 MT, due to high prices in the global rice market.

The NFA is authorized to bring in up to 2.1 million MT of rice this year. The agency has so far signed contracts to import 1.71 million MT of the grain. The Philippines is the world's largest importer of rice this year.