The Philippines’ agriculture department is planning to import 22,000 tons of onions to boost domestic supply as surging prices of the cooking ingredient, possibly the most expensive in the world, helped push inflation to a 14-year high.
The import proposal was arrived at during a meeting of the department’s executive committee and will be recommended to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. for approval, its assistant secretary Rex Estoperez said in a phone interview Sunday. Marcos is also the agriculture secretary.
The proposed purchase “will be good for a month and to pull down prices,” Estoperez said. “We can’t sit idly because