BIZ BUZZ: Rice prices going down, but not yet P20/kilo
President Marcos has yet to fulfill his campaign promise of lowering rice prices to P20 per kilo, but at least retail prices of rice are starting to decline.
The Department of Agriculture’s price monitoring showed that as of Feb. 10, rice was being sold in public markets for around P40 a kilogram, from P50 a kilo last year.
Given its recent efforts and the decline in global prices, the agency hopes that retail prices will soon go down to about P30 per kg in the near term.
“Hindi pa rin siguro… not P20 but possible siguro sa mid-P30s talaga (Probably not yet… not P20 per kilogram, but maybe around mid-P30 per kilogram realistically speaking),” Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. said during a recent market visit in Quezon City.
“World prices are also going down. So, if the world price, theoretically… if the world price of rice goes down, even its inputs including fertilizer should follow,” he told reporters.
And that will put the Marcos administration closer to hitting the target of P20 a kilo, perhaps before the end of his term in 2028.
