May 7, 2008 -

The government failed in the bidding for rice with other countries last Monday. President Arroyo announced that top rice producing countries such as Thailand and Vietnam hesitated to participate in the bidding that usually increases the price of rice in the global market. Arroyo now has arranged for the authorities to start purchasing rice directly from outside countries to stop the rice commotion in the country. The Philippines are now trying to find more suppliers to provide rice for the population.

Vietnam has agreed to bring in 1.5 million tons of rice to the Philippines by this year, BBC News reported. (This picture was extracted from here.)

The Southeast Asian community have decided to collaborate over the price and supply issue of the rice market, but no action has yet to be taken.

 To access this article in the Philippine Star, click here.

April 15 (Bloomberg) — The Philippines, the world’s biggest rice importer, intensified efforts to crack down on hoarding as prices rose to a record and Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc said the president’s popularity may be undermined by food inflation.

The Southeast Asian nation would target “unscrupulous traders together with their accomplices in the bureaucracy,” President Gloria Arroyo said today. “We have already taken steps to protect our consumers from rice and even bread bandits.”

To read the rest of this article, please click here.

The Philippines, the largest importer of rice, is in a midst of a rice shortage problem according to an article from Forbes. As a result due to the rice shortage, the price of rice is increasing. The rice issue is not just frustrating the country’s economic health but also other big rice-consuming countries such as India, China, and Japan. In addition, the Philippines’ public sector has lowered because of this predicament. The article continues to talk about how this problem is affecting other parts of the country’s health and the rest of Asia as well.

To read this article, click here.

This picture was taken from this site.