|
Vietnam rice exports may top record by 20 percent this year
Rice exports from Vietnam, the world’s second-biggest shipper, may exceed the previous record by 20 percent this year, even as the total value of exports is forecast to drop.
Shipments are expected to be 6 million to 6.2 million metric tons, Minister of Industry and Trade Vu Huy Hoang told the National Assembly in Hanoi Wednesday. That compares with the previous record of 5.17 million tons in 2005, according to figures from the US Foreign Agricultural Service, which last month forecast total exports of 5.7 million tons.
Global demand for imports is expected to grow this year after storms destroyed 1.3 million tons of rice in the Philippines, the world’s biggest buyer, and drought slashed India’s crop by as much as 18 percent, according to the country’s Farm Ministry.
“This will be a record year for our rice exports, but because the price has fluctuated so much, we expect the total value of shipments to fall compared with 2008,” Hoang said.
Rice futures in Chicago have jumped 36 percent since slumping to a low of $11.195 per 100 pounds in March, and traded at $15.205 at 12:39 p.m. in Singapore. The price reached a record $25.07 in April 2008 as concerns over shortages prompted countries like Vietnam and India to curb exports.
The Philippines will hold two record tenders of 600,000 tons each on Dec. 1 and Dec. 8, as the country advances imports for 2010 to secure supplies amid rising prices. The Southeast Asian nation bought 260,000 tons in September, including 15,000 tons from Vietnam Southern Food Corp.
‘Huge supplies’
India is in talks with Thailand and Vietnam to buy rice under government-to-government contracts, the country’s Trade Minister Anand Sharma said Tuesday. Thailand is the world’s biggest rice exporter.
Vietnam has “huge exportable supplies,” the Foreign Agricultural Service said in a monthly report on global grain markets in October.
“Vietnam’s price quotes are around $60 per ton below Thailand’s price quotes, down from an almost $100 difference in early October, but still enough of a difference to make Vietnam a very competitive seller,” the US Agriculture Department said in a report last week.
Stronger-than-expected rice shipments may boost Vietnam’s overall export receipts and help ease a widening trade deficit that has damaged confidence in the Vietnamese dong.
The value of Vietnamese rice exports declined 8 percent in the 10 months through October to $2.38 billion, even as shipments increased 33 percent by volume to 5.34 million tons, according to preliminary estimates from the General Statistics Office in Hanoi.
Rice was Vietnam’s sixth-biggest export by value in the first 10 months of the year.
thanhnien, Bloomberg
|
