Manila, Nov 5 - The Philippines, the world's biggest rice importer, may return to the market in December or January, although all imports will be for 2009 arrivals, the agriculture minister said on Wednesday.
Arthur Yap also said domestic output of unmilled rice for the fourth quarter could drop from the 6.37 million tonnes produced in the same period in 2007 due to early planting.
"We will really import in the year 2009," Arthur Yap told a local radio station, but gave no volume of likely purchases.
The Southeast Asian nation, which aims to be self sufficient in rice by 2013, imports about 10 percent of its annual needs of the staple.
Officials of the state's grain importing arm, the National Food Authority, have previously said the country may import about 1.5 million tonnes in 2009, down from a huge purchase of 2.3 million tonnes this year, that drove benchmark rice prices to a record above $1,000 per tonne.
Yap later told reporters the government had not decided whether to hold a tender or buy directly from rice producing countries.
"We will see how we can buy because the (law) allows us many ways to buy and we'll try to buy in a way that will not affect prices. It will be tragic if we will be locked in by buying methods and the price will be against us."
Vietnam agreed in June to supply 600,000 tonnes of rice to the Philippines in Manila's last major purchase this year.
Increased supply at the start of the harvesting season in Thailand, the world's biggest rice exporter, pushed down the benchmark Thai rice grade to $550 per tonne on Wednesday and traders say the price is likely to drop further.
The Philippines is awaiting the third-quarter farm output report, due in the middle of November, and which also provides an estimate of rice production for the whole of 2008, before deciding on how much it needs to import for 2009.
But any crop planted after Sept. 15 can only be harvested next year Yap said.
"That's why I'm already expecting that for the fourth quarter, it's possible that there will be no growth or even negative growth from 2007," he added.
Last month, Yap said rice output for the third quarter may have increased by less than 6 percent from the 3.15 million tonnes produced a year ago.
The government is aggressively buying unmilled rice from farmers and Yap said the state had bought 300,000 tonnes of the grain so far this year, versus just 33,000 tonnes at the same time in 2007.
Yap said there are enough funds to increase the volume to 500,000 tonnes, and other officials hope procurement can increase by 700,000 tonnes this month.
Rice stocks now stand at around 1 million tonnes, the government has said.