Lambino: Lower Prices of Key Food Products Seen in Following Months

An official of the Department of Finance (DOF) on Monday said government sees prices of basic commodities going down in the following months after it started implementing “immediate actions” addressing supply constraints to curb food inflation.

“The economic development cluster of the Duterte administration expects moderate inflation in the months ahead following the implementation of measures to tame the rise in commodity prices,” DOF Assistant Secretary Tony Lambino said during the launch of “The Presser”, a show developed by the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO), hosted by Communications Secretary Martin Andanar, and held at the Philippine Information Agency.

Lambino said part of these measures include streamlining import procedures for rice, fish, and sugar in order to boost their supply in the domestic market.

To lower the prices of fish, he said the Department of Agriculture (DA) has committed to allowing more imports to come in. The DA earlier claimed that the importation of 17,000 metric tons of “galunggong” (round scad) would lower the price of fish to P75 to P80 per kilo.

“For rice, 4.6 million sacks of rice that are available to National Food Authority (NFA) warehouses are for immediate release to the market across the country, and we expect 7 million sacks of rice to arrive over the next six to eight weeks, some of it previously contracted, some of it newly approved,” he said.

“The NFA council also will approve the evaluation of 5 to 10 [million] sacks for next year as standby stock,” he added, saying the harvest of the staple food had already started in some parts of the country with a projected harvest of 252 million sacks.

“Pagdating sa bigas, we are looking at multiple sources of addressing the supply shortage,” he said.

Lambino said the economic development cluster, which includes the DA, is in the process of recommending to President Duterte the issuance of a directive to simplify licensing procedures for rice imports of NFA.

He said the cluster is recommending to the President to urge the Legislative branch to immediately pass by this month, the rice tarrification bill, a measure, which imposes tariffs on rice imports in place of quotas.

“Sa pagkain po pinaka nararamdaman ang pagtaas ng presyo. In fact if we look at the regional inflation numbers, dito po sa Region 3 at sa CAR, mga agriculturally productive regions, dyan po ang pinakamababa na inflation rates. In fact, for Region 3 it has been below the upper half of the target, and for CAR, malapit lang po ng above the target, unlike the national average of 6.4 (percent). The lowest regional inflation rate is recorded by the PSA in food abundant and agriculturally productive regions of Central Luzon and CAR, among others,” Lambino added. (PIA-NCR)