The Philippines, the world's biggest rice buyer, could import as much as 3 million tons of the grain next year after local crops were damaged by typhoons, a government official said Monday.

''That's the worst case scenario, you'll never know if harvests may be damaged again and there's also El Niño,'' National Food Authority (NFA) spokesman Rex Estoperez told reporters when asked if Manila's 2010 rice imports may reach 3 million tons.

He was speaking a day after Manila announced it would hold a third import tender for 600,000 tons in December, taking its total purchases for next year to 2.05 million tons.

It has already held one tender for 250,000 tons and now plans three 600,000 ton purchases in December, all for delivery in 2010.
Estoperez said the state grain agency NFA's Dec. 15 tender for 600,000 tonnes of rice would be its last this year and any further purchases would likely happen in the first quarter.

Total imports scheduled so far for 2010 exceed the 1.775 million tons the country imported for 2009 and are near the record 2.3 million tons it bought for 2008, which helped send grain prices to all-time highs.

The Philippines lost 1.3 million tons of paddy rice, equivalent to around 845,000 tons of milled rice, after three typhoons hit key rice-growing areas in the main Luzon island from late September.

The country's paddy rice output is forecast to drop 2.4 percent to 16.42 million tons in 2009, the first time fall in full-year production since a massive drought hit crops in 1998.

Officials have said they want to clinch purchases before rice prices rise further, especially since India faces a shortfall in supply this year, although with high stocks it may not have to enter the market.

Benchmark Thai rice prices currently stand at $565 a ton free on board, well short of the values above $1,000 hit in early 2008 when worries about food security caused panic buying of the grain.

Main rice exporters Thailand and Vietnam are believed to be holding high stocks of the grain.

Thailand has proposed selling the Philippines one million tons of rice each year for the next three years, another NFA official said.

The proposal is currently being studied by the Philippine government, Ludovico Jarina, NFA deputy administrator, told reporters.

''I think that is good for the Philippines, because in a way you're being guaranteed that any time you need it, you have supply,'' Jarina said.

The Philippines will hold a tender to import 600,000 tons of rice on Dec. 15, its third tender of that volume next month, the government said on Sunday, as the world's biggest rice buyer boosts supplies after storms pulverised output.

It would be the fourth rice tender for 2010 called by the state's National Food Authority, and would bring total imports for next year to 2.05 million tons. (Reuters)