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Record rice exports expected this year
Exporters have shipped 4.9 million tonnes of rice worth more than US$2 billion in the first nine months of the year, an increase of 40 per cent in volume and reduction of 6.2 per cent in value against the same period last year, the Viet Nam Food Association (VFA) reported on Wednesday.
The VFA estimated that rice exporters would ship an additional 1.2 million of rice in the fourth quarter of this year, taking total exports this year to 6-6.2 million tonnes, a record level.
As of Wednesday, Vietnamese exporters had signed contracts to export a total of 6 million tonnes of rice this year.
Nguyen Tho Tri, VFA’s deputy chairman, said the prices of Vietnamese export rice were increasing by $30 a tonne compared to last month.
Tri said VFA and its member companies were negotiating with importers to sign large contracts that could be signed by the year-end.
Viet Nam’s main export markets are Indonesia, the Philippines, Cuba and Iraq.
This year, rice exports to Africa and the Middle East have increased significantly.
Rice exporters have delivered 1.4 million tonnes to Africa and 250,000 tonnes to the Middle East in the first nine months of the year, an increase of 98 per cent and 65 per cent against the same period last year, respectively.
The VFA also reported that its member companies had bought 380,000 tonnes of 500,000 tonnes of rice after the Government last month ordered the VFA to purchase part of the summer-autumn rice crop to ensure stable prices.
The VFA’s member companies will complete the purchase of 500,000 tonnes of rice by November 20.
In early August, the association members also purchased 490,000 tonnes of rice from Mekong Delta farmers to stabilise rice prices when the delta was entering its peak harvest of the summer-autumn crop.
The Delta, the country’s rice granary, has harvested about 2 million tonnes of rice in the summer-autumn crop, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.
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