LEGAZPI CITY—Port workers started unloading on Monday at least 120,000 bags, or 6,000 metric tons, of rice imported from Vietnam that arrived on Saturday at Port of Legazpi, said an official of the National Food Authority (NFA).
Nelsie Alcantara, NFA spokesperson, said the rice shipment consigned to NFA-Bicol was on board MV Vinh An, a Vietnamese vessel that was docked at the Legazpi port on Saturday.
Alcantara, in a phone interview on Monday, said the unloading of the 120,000 bags of 50-kilogram white Vietnam rice started only on Monday after the cargo officer of the vessel refused to unload the cargo because of bad weather.
She said, though, that she did not know how much the imported rice cost.
Alcantara, however, told the Inquirer that the NFA sells rice to accredited retailers at P1,250 per bag for the regular milled variety and P1,800 per bag for the well-milled variety.
Alcantara said that after unloading the shipment, the rice cargo would be deposited at the NFA warehouse here and the 120,000 bags would be allocated to provinces in the region.
She said the provinces of Catanduanes and Masbate would each get 24,000 bags; Albay province, 22,000; Camarines Sur province, 20,000, and Sorsogon and Camarines Norte provinces would each get 15,000.
She said the shipment was part of the government’s rice importation from Vietnam in 2013. Bicol had been allocated 600,000 bags last year.
Salvador Ruivivar, Bureau of Customs operations chief, said in an interview that after a thorough check of import documents presented by the shipper, customs examiners found these to be “perfectly in order.”
The bureau, he said, issued a permit to unload the cargo and another to transport the rice from the port to its different destinations.
Ruivivar said the unloading of the shipment would take five to six days depending on the weather. “Rice cargo is not unloaded when there’s rain,” he said.