The retail price of a quintal of rice that would initially come from Colombia as part of the first import, about 30,000 tons, would be $46, which would arrive in the next few days. This was stated by the Minister of Agriculture and Livestock Eduardo Izaguirre.

“The retail price would be 46 dollars, and the idea is to lower that price in other countries and in Colombia itself. The whole continent is currently having problems with rice, so we will raise the price to the level of our normal prices, between 32 and 35 dollars,” he assured.

The minister indicated that “Colombia is the first supplier” of the rice that the private company would import to supply the Ecuadorian market and that this first purchase is expected to be 30,000 tons “for these days and will continue weekly” until it is achieved that “the price equalizes “, so “it could conditionally reach 120,000 tons” in imports.

Less supply of rice and price fluctuations are beginning to be noticed on supermarket shelves

But the purchase would not only be from a neighboring country, says Izaguirre, because they closely cooperate with Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil because they are also “producers” and analyze whether they have the capacity for export, price and time. “We have to do a timein such a way that there is a chain of these imports”, assured the minister in an interview for ecuavisa.

President Guillermo Lasso assured this Wednesday, June 21, that the import of rice is a “fact” and added that it is to protect consumers. “If the price goes up, rice will have to be imported to maintain prices,” the president said after attending an Aviation Day event in Guayaquil.

When asked if it was a shortage and not a hoarding of piladors, the president answered: “I don’t want to speculate, but with imports, the price of rice will fall,” he said, adding that imports will go down. by private sector.

The measure they are taking now is “a post of what could be a deficit,” according to Izaguirre, who explained the reasons. In the summer, 150,000 hectares of rice are usually planted in Ecuador, at this moment, according to the last data I had, 72,000 hectares have been planted, we have to promote the planting this month and next month, he said.

The minister also assured that this import of 30,000 tons of rice from Colombia will not affect the July harvest of Ecuadorian producers. This is because “they do monitoring (weekly measurement) within the production and deficit and we continue to measure planted hectares permanently to know the later supply,” the official said.

The manufacturing sector opposes the import of rice announced by the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock. Industrialists calculate volume per order

In the calculations that were made, “the only month that has a small deficit is July, we are preventing a slightly larger deficit in August, and that is why we will continue with imports,” he said.

The official also reiterated that only the private sector would be in charge of imports and would have to adjust as Ecuador phased out its production.

He also indicated that the product to be imported will be of the highest quality. “Currently it is the highest quality rice, because it has to compete on the supermarket shelves,” he said.