Cebu City (16 July) -- Prices of local varieties of commercial rice have started to drop by an average of P5 per kilo as the National Food Authority (NFA-7) started to invade the public markets with well-milled imported Vietnam rice.

Grains retailer Raymond Mahawon who runs a stall in Carbon Market, Cebu's major wet market, admitted the influx of the NFA-subsidized commercial rice from Vietnam has triggered a decline of prices of local varieties of commercial rice such as Ivory, Sunflower and Masipag.

Before the entry of the NFA commercial rice, Sunflower and Masipag used to cost P42/kilo while Ivory was priced at P40/kilo, according to Mahawon.

Today, both Sunflower and Masipag are priced at P42/kilo while Ivory is down to P35/kilo, Mahawon said.

Imported commercial rice from Vietnam and Thailand that used to cost P43/kilo and P44/kilo respectively have decreased by P3/kilo, Mahawon added.

NFA-7 information officer Edgar Diez bared they began the aggressive entry of the NFA-subsidized commercial rice from Vietnam since last week of June so consumers can have a choice of lowered-cost of commercial rice as most well-milled commercial rice of any variety costs almost P50/kilo.

The introduction of the NFA commercial rice from Vietnam at P35/kilo has induced rice retailers to lower the prices of commercial rice, Diez said.

Diez said they expect a further drop in prices of commercial rice due to the flooding of the NFA-subsidized commercial rice. Each retailer is entitled to have 50 bags of the imported Vietnam rice from the NFA-7.

NFA-subsidized regular milled rice is still priced at P18.25/kilo but is only made available at Tindahan ni Gloria (TnG) Outlets based in depressed areas. Currently, there are over 400 TnG outlets in the province while Diez said their agency is still processing the applications for accreditation of more TnG outlets and expects the outlets to increase to 500 before the month ends.

Another NFA-subsidized rice from the US at P25/kilo is also being flooded in the Institutionalized Bigasan ni Gloria sa Palengke (IBNGP) located in big wet markets such as in Carbon, Tabo-an and T.Padilla in Cebu City, Mandaue City, Lapu-lapu City, Lilo-an and Consolacion. This is aimed at making available to the public varieties of rice, regular and well-milled, at different costs, this is learned.

Central Visayas is allotted 3.6M bags of rice while over 2M bags have already arrived and over a million bags more containing all rice varieties from P18.25/kilo, P25/kilo to P35/kilo are expected to arrive anytime soon.