Rice Market: Demand for U.S. Rice in Colombia Is Back
Published on: February 4, 2022.
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Last week, the entity that oversees the sales and distribution of Colombian import certificates for U.S. rice, Colombia Rice Export Quota, Inc. (COL-RICE), held the largest of their three quota auctions for 2022.
A total of 85,913 metric tons (MT) milled rice equivalent of U.S. rice quota was made available to the market, ultimately providing an opportunity for quota holders in the U.S. to ship paddy, brown, milled, or broken rice duty-free, as long as it clears Colombian customs by June 30, 2022.
Last January’s quota auction saw only 8 percent of the tonnage utilized out of 82,213 MT that was made available. With a record Colombian rice crop in 2021 and inflated food prices, demand in Colombia sank for the first time since the signing of the Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement (TPA) in 2012, leading to just 6 percent of the annual U.S. tariff rate quota being subscribed.
“Through as late as last fall, we expected the demand for imported rice in Colombia to remain low, until we heard that Colombia had overstated their stocks by a significant amount, leading to creation of demand prior to last week’s auction,” said Michael Rue, California rice producer and alternating chair of the COL-RICE Board of Directors.
“If the January auction serves as a barometer for the 2022 demand in Colombia, I’d say that it appears to be back for now. When you look at our top export markets for 2021, it is unusual to see that Colombia had disappeared after so many years of market growth, but we have strong relationships with our customers there and are glad to see that they’re picking back up as a viable market this year.
Source: https://agfax.com/2022/02/03/rice-market-demand-for-u-s-rice-in-colombia-is-back/
