Sue Gertrude G. Aguado
BSC-MA 3G MWF 1:30-2:30 pm
LOS BANOS, LAGUNA - The Philippines plans to import around 800,000 tons rice this year even if a government council allowed purchases of up to 1.3 million tons, the agriculture secretary said on Monday.
Proceso Alcala told Reuters he prefers the private sector to bring in the bulk, or 600,000 tons, of this year's planned rice purchases starting May to June.
He said the government wants to cut its rice imports in 2012 by half, or about 400,000 tons, against this year before it achieves its goal of rice self-sufficiency by 2013.
Source: http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/business/02/28/11/philippines-plans-buy-800000t-rice-2011
BSC-MA 3G MWF 1:30-2:30 pm
Philippines plans to buy 800,000T rice in 2011
LOS BANOS, LAGUNA - The Philippines plans to import around 800,000 tons rice this year even if a government council allowed purchases of up to 1.3 million tons, the agriculture secretary said on Monday.
Proceso Alcala told Reuters he prefers the private sector to bring in the bulk, or 600,000 tons, of this year's planned rice purchases starting May to June.
He said the government wants to cut its rice imports in 2012 by half, or about 400,000 tons, against this year before it achieves its goal of rice self-sufficiency by 2013.
Source: http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/business/02/28/11/philippines-plans-buy-800000t-rice-2011
REACTION PAPER
This article was all about the government's plan to import rice for this year. It was stated here that they were planning to buy around 800,000 tons rice even if the allowable purchases were up to 1.3 M tons. Well, I agree in that case since I believe that they--referring to their economists, were able to estimate the needs or the demands of the people. And even though, the government has an allowed purchases of up to 1.3M tons, they should not purchase the maximum without a proper study of our market equilibrium. Because when the government would have wrong decision, it would have a great effect in our economy. Like for example is when the government will purchase more tons of rice not considering the market equilibrium, that would probably lead into surplus of the production. In other case, when they will purchase few tons, which was opposite to the demands of the people, then that would probably lead to shortage of supply. In the end, the people will suffer because of the effects of every wrong decision by the government.
I remember the news about the surplus of sacks of rice production which were stored by the government somewhere in Luzon. The sacks of rice cannot be used because they are expired already. Hopefully, that would never happen again. I think it would be okay if the number of sacks were immaterial, but the big storeroom were still full, thus, they were very material. They would probably cost millions. To think, the money used to buy those were from the people. What a waste! Thus, I am hoping that the government would really study the situation very well before making a decision to avoid negative consequences.
