The number of prospective bidders for the open tender to deliver 250,000 metric tons of rice to the National Food Authority (NFA) rose to 19 on the eve of the deadline for submission of bids set for 25 July. NFA said all those interested to compete for a total of eight contracts worth about P 5.6 billion were all based in Southeast Asia. Among them, 10 are from Vietnam, the source of most of the NFA’s milled rice imports during the past several years. Six bidders were based in Thailand. Two of the remainder are Olam International Ltd. and Louis Dreyfus Co. and the last is Swhe Wah Yaung Agriculture Production Co. Ltd. from Myanmar.