Asean countries push for extension of rice reserve plan

Member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are pushing for the extension of the East Asia Emergency Rice Reserve (EAERR) program until 2008.

At the ongoing Special Senior Officials’ Meeting (SSOM) of the ASEAN Ministers on Agriculture and Fishery (AMAF) in Bohol, senior ministers agreed to submit a proposal to extend the EAERR to the AMAF meeting in Singapore this November.

"We will be discussing the highlights of this proposal during the SSOM, where senior officials of the different agriculture and fisheries departments will thresh out the issue, among others," said National Food Authority (NFA) Administrator Gregorio Tan Jr., the newly-elected chairman of the Association of South East Asian Nations Food Security Reserve Board (AFSRB).

Tan replaced Dr. Kyaw Win of Myanmar, deputy director of the Settlement and Land Record Department of Myanmar’s Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation, as the new AFSRB chairman last June.

The AFSRB is a body created by an accord among the governments of 10 ASEAN countries, namely Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Lao People’s Democratic Republic (PDR) and the Philippines.

Tan is the Philippine representative to the AFSRB.

The EAERR program is aimed at stabilizing rice prices in the region and in beefing up stocks for use during calamities.

"If we succeed in extending the EAERR for another two years, we will again push for the permanent implementation of the program during the next AMAF in 2007," Tan said.

Based on the previous plan, member-countries are planning to hike the region’s staple reserve from 87,000 metric tons to 1.75 million metric tons to stabilize the price and supply of the commodity. – Rocel Felix