More rice shipments expected in Cebu

FIVE more vessels loaded with imported rice will arrive in Cebu soon, the National Food Authority (NFA) said.

Olma Marie Bayno, assistant information officer of NFA-7, said each vessel carries around 120,000 sacks of rice from Vietnam and Thailand.

“We still don’t have an exact date for their arrival because the papers are still being processed,” Bayno said.

She said six vessels have arrived at the Cebu International Port (CIP) since December 2015.

Only MV Tayson, which carried 230,000 sacks of rice from Thailand, has finished unloading. Five vessels from Vietnam have yet to unload.

The vessels are: Vina Ship Ocean with 214,000 bags; Truong Minh Glory with 135,000 bags, Thanh Cong with 130,000 bags, My An with 151,000 bags and Tan Binh with 190,000 bags.

Vina Ship, which arrived last Dec. 30, was expected to dock yesterday and start unloading its cargo. The other four are still anchored in the waters off Talisay City.

Yusop Uckung, deputy manager of the Cebu Port Authority (CPA), said NFA has been allotted only one berthing space at the CIP.

The congestion at the port has caused a delay in the unloading of cargoes.

With the arrival of five more vessels, Uckung said it would be up to NFA to hasten the unloading.

“They should hire more trucks,” he said. Unloading  120,000 bags of rice normally takes seven days.

The shipments are part of the 500,000 metric tons of rice that are expected to be delivered this quarter.

NFA was allowed to import  750,000 metric tons of rice last year to beef up buffer stock in anticipation of the El Niño phenomenon. NFA already took possession of 250,000 metric tons in the last quarter of 2015.

Nestor Rey Alcoseba, NFA-7 assistant director, earlier said Central and Eastern Visayas regions will get 157,900 metric tons, or almost 3.2 million bags.