The Philippines, currently the world's largest rice-importing nation, has reported what it called an "unprecedented" harvest of palay, or paddy rice, in the first quarter of this year.

Aided by improved irrigation facilities and rains, paddy rice production rose by 15.6 percent on the year to a first quarter total of 4.03 million metric tons, Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala told journalists on Tuesday.

The record palay output, described as the highest-ever for that period in the country's history, propelled the agriculture sector's overall growth to 4.1 percent in the three-month period, reversing the decline posted in the same period last year.

At current prices, total first-quarter agriculture production was valued at 347.2 billion pesos (US$8.1 billion), an increase of 12.7 percent over the year-ago amount, according to agriculture department estimates.

This performance is expected to boost the period's gross domestic product performance that is due to be announced in two weeks, according to economists.

Mr Alcala pointed out that the record paddy rice harvest could lead to sufficiency in rice supply for the country in two years.

This year the Philippines is planning to import 860,000 tons of the staple, which is smaller compared to the 2.45 million tons procured last year.

Local palay production is forecast at around 17.46 million tons for the whole of 2011, an increase of about 10 percent from last year's volume, the agriculture official said.

In other agricultural sectors, production of corn grew by 19.5 percent to 1.9 million tons, sugarcane rose by 26.7 percent to 12.75 million tons, banana increased by 2.7 percent to 2.1 million tons, along with higher levels, cassava, cabbage, and rubber, the agriculture agency said.

On the other hand, livestock and poultry posted minimal growth in volumes, which resulted in declines in value of production for the period.

The fisheries group was the lone loser in the first quarter, recording an output drop of 3.5 percent which depressed its production value by 1.7 percent to 52.4 billion pesos.