MANILA - The Philippines' rice stocks increased in June while inventories of corn registered a decline, the Philippine Statistics Authority said on Friday. 

The PSA said that as of June 1, the country’s total rice stocks inventory was estimated at 2.16 million metric tons, up 19 percent from 1.82 million metric tons inventory in the same period of the previous year.

Rice stocks were also up by 4.2 percent from the May’s inventory of 2.08 million metric tons.

"This month’s rice stocks inventories registered annual increases from the NFA depositories by 62.5 percent and from the commercial sector by 56.7 percent. On the other hand, an annual decrease was noted from the households by 21.3 percent," the PSA said. 

Rice prices to go down by second half of the year, Agri chief says

Rice prices are expected to go down starting this month as global prices ease. The government has blamed the recent El Niño phenomenon for the hikes in rice prices from the latter part of 2023 to the earlier part of 2024. 

Inflation stayed elevated in the first half mainly due to high rice prices, analysts have said. 

The government is hoping to bring down rice prices further by cutting the tariffs on imports of the commodity. 

Rice to be cheaper by P5 per kilo with tariff cut: Recto

Meanwhile, the PSA also noted that as of June, the total corn stocks inventory of the country fell 15.3 percent to 750.76 thousand metric tons. 

"About 93.6 percent of this month’s total corn stocks inventory were from the commercial sector, while the remaining 6.4 percent were from the households," the PSA said.

Corn is used mainly to feed livestock and poultry.