THE Philippines' rice imports reached nearly 2.0 million metric tons (MT) in the first five months of the year, higher compared to last year's level, data from the Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI) showed.

The latest report from the BPI showed that the country's rice imports from January 1 to May 23 went up by 20.3 percent to 1.97 million MT, higher compared to last year's 1.64 million MT. The BPI is an agency under the Department of Agriculture (DA).

For May alone, rice deliveries were tallied at 299,258.01 MT, slightly lower from the 321,582.36 MT posted in the whole of the same month last year.

Since the year started, the BPI has released a total of 4,066 sanitary and phytosanitary import clearances to accredited importers of the staple.

Vietnam remains the country's top source of the staple from January 1 to May 23, shipping 1.44 million MT of rice or 72.9 percent of total imports. Thailand delivered some 300,227.24 MT of rice, Pakistan followed with 144,834.50 MT, and some 65,080 MT came from Myanmar.

The remaining volume, meanwhile, came from India, China, Japan, Cambodia, Italy and Spain.

Last year, inbound shipments of the staple totaled 3.6 million MT, down 5.9 percent from the record high of 3.82 million MT logged in 2022. For this year, the DA projects rice imports not exceeding last year's import volume.

However, the United States Department of Agriculture said that "the Philippines is expected to again be the largest global rice importer."

The US agency forecast the country's imports to hit a record 4.2 million MT due to continued growth in consumption.

Local rice inventory, meanwhile, declined by 10.9 percent as of April due to the effects of the El Niño, the Philippine Statistics Authority said. Rice inventory as of the beginning of the month was estimated at 1.64 million MT, lower than the 1.84 million MT logged in the same period of 2023.

Month-on-month, the volume of rice stocks inventory recorded an increase of 20.2 percent from the previous month's inventory of 1.37 million MT.