MANILA (Commodity Online) : Philippines on Friday said it will import 30,000 tones of mostly top-quality rice, mostly from Thailand and Vietnam.

State-run Philippine International Trading Corp (PITC) will be importing the grain for arrival until Jan. 31, 2010 on behalf of private firms and cooperatives.

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The country's main grain-importing arm, the National Food Authority (NFA), gave the trading agency authority to import rice.

The NFA held a tender on Wednesday to buy 250,000 tones of 25 percent broken white rice, with Vietnam's Vinafood 2 likely to win 150,000 tones of the 250,000 tones tendered after offering one of the two lowest bids.

The Philippines, the world's biggest rice buyer, has imported 1.775 million tones of the national staple this year, lower than a record 2.3 million tones in 2008 which helped drive prices to record highs.

Of the 2009 total, 1.5 million tones was bought from Vietnam via a government-to-government deal while 200,000 tones was imported by private firms through the NFA.

Demand from the Philippines and other importers like Iraq and India are expected to keep rice prices firm through 2010.

But industry players say prices probably won't rise as much as they did in 2008 when export curbs by key producers caused Thailand's benchmark 100 percent B white rice to touch an all-time peak of $1,080 per tone .