BOCAUE, Bulacan — Commercial palay prices rose by an average of P1.00 per kilo or P50 per sack as the government recently announced its plan to import rice.

Traders at the Intercity Industrial Estate and Golden City Business Park, two of the major rice trading centers in Luzon, have confirmed that a day after the proposed plan to import rice was reported, palay traders suddenly raised their palay prices at an average of P30-P31 per kilo from the previous day’s P28-P29 per kilo.

The announcement was made as several areas in Central Luzon, the rice granary of the country, are experiencing floodwater brought by the recent rains of typhoons Egay, Falcon and the southwest monsoon.

The traders claimed that this is the second time this week that palay prices have increased, the first one was when fuel prices were raised on Tuesday and the second one on Thursday.

Tony Santos, a rice trader, has confirmed that palay prices are steadily rising as the rice lean months of July, August and September is picking up.

He noted that at the current palay prices of P30-31 per kilo production costs of a kilo of rice, granting it attains a 60 percent rice milling recovery, will range from P2,300 to P2,376 per 50-kilo sack or P46 to P 47.53 per kilo.

Wholesale rice traders place at least P4.00 per kilo mark up to offset the cost on sacks, milling fees and other incidental expenses while rice middlemen place another P4.00 mark up to cover up for trucking services and other expenses in their deliveries to retailers who in turn put up an average P.4.00 mark up before selling it to consumers.

These would lead to an average of P58 to P59 per kilo of commercial rice in the market.

On the other hand, Rosendo So, president of Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultura (SINAG), said the landed cost of an imported rice from Vietnam is around P2,200 per 50-kilo sack or P44 per kilogram while that from Thailand cost around P2,400 per 50-kilo sack or P48 per kilo.

However, So noted that these are only landed costs and does cover other costs like warehousing, trucking services and other incidental expenses before being sold by retailers to the consuming public.

Overall local commercial rices are still cheaper compared to imported rice, So added.

Photo: Mon Lazaro