NFA-Zamboanga receives 156,000 sacks of rice imported from Vietnam

ZAMBOANGA CITY, Aug. 20 (PNA) – The National Food Authority (NFA) has received a shipment of 156,000 bags of 50 kilos each of imported rice from Vietnam, an NFA official announced Wednesday.

NFA Provincial Manager Gaudencio Nuega said the shipment of rice arrived Tuesday at the local port aboard a Vietnamese cargo vessel, M/V Bimaru Pearl.

“Maganda ang quality ng bigas dahil 15 percent broken lang. We will sell this at P32 per kilo,” Nuega said.

Nuega said 30,000 of the 156,000 sacks of rice will be shipped to the provinces of Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi (BaSulTa) while the remaining 126,000 will be for this city.

“The rice allocation for BaSulTa is 90,000 sacks for this year and we already distributed 60,000 sacks of rice,” he added.

He said the rice that arrived Tuesday is the second to the last shipment of rice for his office for this year.

He said the last batch of rice shipment consisting of 54,000 sacks will arrived next month.

Meanwhile, he said they will flood the market with NFA rice to cushion the effect of the continued increase in the prices of rice of commercial varieties.

He also warned unscrupulous rice merchants to refrain from selling NFA rice as commercial rice by mixing it with another variety.

He said those who will be caught engaged in such nefarious activities will be slapped with appropriate charges and sanctions.

Nuega said they have activated a monitoring team to closely watch the sale of NFA rice in the market. (PNA)
LAM/TPGJR/UTB