MANILA - Philippine authorities are keeping an eye on the country's rice supply and will decide shortly if more imports of the staple grain are needed after two typhoons hit major rice-producing provinces this month, an official said on Tuesday.

The country's grains procurement agency National Food Authority (NFA) has a stand-by authority to import another 250,000 tons of rice in addition to the 250,000 tons it bought recently from Vietnam and Thailand, said Diwa Guinigundo, the deputy governor of the country's central bank.

The central bank is represented in the NFA Council, the inter-agency panel that approves rice importation.

The council "will be monitoring the situation within the month and on the basis of our assessment, decide accordingly," Guinigundo told Reuters, without giving any further details on the timing of the NFA's next rice import deal.

The central bank is closely watching domestic rice prices, which account for 9 percent of the consumer basket, making the commodity an "important determinant of inflation," Guinigundo said in separate interview with local news channel ANC.

The NFA Council has yet to see any damage report after Super Typhoon Haima hit some of the country's rice-growing regions last week, Guinigundo said in the ANC interview.

"Depending on the magnitude ... I think the NFA has sufficient buffer at this point to make sure that prices of rice and other commodities will be more or less stable," he said.

Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol said on Monday there was no urgent need to import rice, although his department said the damage inflicted by Super Typhoon "Lawin" (international name: Haima) on agriculture and fisheries had reached P10.2 billion ($212 million), with the biggest losses seen in rice, corn and vegetables.

Lawin, the 12th storm to hit the Philippines this year, came just days after Typhoon Karen (international name: Sarika) also slammed into the northern provinces, damaging $62 million worth of crops.

The Southeast Asian country, one of the world's biggest rice importers, is hit by an average of 20 storms every year.