Dear Readers, We are pleased to share the third issue of our monthly publication, the Asia Pacific Food Price and Policy Monitor, which aims to provide up-to-date information on price and policy developments in the Asia-Pacific region. Highlights of the September 2013 issue are: * Inflationary trends in the Asia-Pacific region persisted in August as the regional food and general inflation indices registered annual increases of 5.8 and 7.5 percent respectively. * The regional price index for wheat increased by 11.1 percent annually; led by increases of 14.3 percent and 9.2 percent in South Asia and India. * Retail prices for onions and tomatoes in major Indian markets registered historic increases of 258.9 percent and 23 percent compared to the same time last year. * Average wholesale prices for Thai white rice (25% broken) fell an average of 13.2 percent from the previous month, and 22.9 percent from the same period in the previous year. * Paddy production in the Philippines during the first half of 2013 was up 1.4 percent from the same period last year. The country is likely to reach rice self-sufficiency target of 20 million tonnes by the end of the year. * In India, the House of Representatives approved the historic National Food Security Bill guaranteeing 5 kg food grains at affordable prices per person each month, with a special focus on nutritional support to women and children, to about 67 percent of the total population. * To curb price increases of local soybeans, Indonesia's Ministry of Trade agreed to release on-the-water soybeans from stockpiles and to increase import quota allocations for state-owned logistics agency Bulog and other traders. For further details please refer to the attachment. The Asia Pacific Food Price and Policy Monitor and other previous publications on food price information can be found at: http://www.fao.org/asiapacific/rap/home/apfppm/en/. For readers who may have questions on the publication, please contact us at [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>. Best regards, Economic, Social and Policy Assistance Group (ESP) FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific Bangkok Thailand ________________________________ To subscribe, please e-mail [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>, leave the subject blank and type subscribe Food-Asia-L To unsubscribe from the Food-Asia-L list, click the following link: https://listserv.fao.org/cgi-bin/wa?TICKET=NzM1MDM0IEFQLVdlZWtseS1QcmljZS1Nb25pdG9yQEZBTy5PUkcgRk9PRC1BU0lBLUwgIOX3O1rbQP0g&c=SIGNOFF ######################################################################## To unsubscribe from the APCAS-L list, click the following link: &*TICKET_URL(APCAS-L,SIGNOFF);