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Nation to surpass rice export target
Viet Nam Food Association (VFA) plans to ask the Prime Minister for approval to increase its earlier export target to its highest-ever rate, 6.4-6.5 million tonnes of rice.
At a meeting held on Friday in HCM City, the association said that export trends were positive because of the return of some markets with a large import volume.
Viet Nam will export about 1.8 million tonnes of rice in the third quarter and 1.3 million tonnes in the fourth quarter, according to the VFA.
In the seven months, rice-export contracts totaled 5.835 million tonnes, an increase of 21.14 per cent over the same period last year.
Until the first week of the month, the country signed contracts to export 6.2 million tonnes, meeting this year's export target.
Le Viet Hai, Director of Can Tho City's Mekong Joint-Stock Company, said the country needed to review and identify the current rice output to develop a new target.
With good export performance, Viet Nam can meet the target of 6.5 million tonnes and a further 7 million tonnes.
He said the Mekong Delta region could grow rice year-round, and when the price increases, local farmers would be willing to expand cultivation areas.
The re-opening of the Bangladesh market in July was marked by a contract to export 178,000 tonnes signed by the Viet Nam Southern Food Corporation (Vinafood 2).
The rice demand in Bangladesh is about one million tonnes per year.
Previously, Bangladesh frequently has frequently bought rice from India and Pakistan. But it has switched to Viet Nam as a main rice supplier, saying the quality of the Vietnamese rice was better, said VFA.
On August 13, Vinafood 2 will negotiate and expectly sign a contract with an export volume of 220,000 tonnes in this market.
China has imported about 600,000 tonnes of Vietnamese rice since the beginning of this year.
The Philippines imports half of its rice from Viet Nam.
VFA said the Philippines was a potential market because the country's farming was often hit by low productivity and natural disasters.
With wheat prices jumping by $80-90 per tonne, many countries, especially in Africa, are shifting to rice imports.
Thanks to the high rice prices on the domestic market, the export rice prices have increased by $20-30 to $375 per 5 per cent broken-rice tonne and $330 per 25 per cent broken-rice tonne.
VFA said the domestic price increase was due to the purchase of one million tonnes of summer-autumn rice from farmers in the Mekong Delta for temporary storage, under a Government order.
The purchases were scheduled to occur between July 15 and September 15. At least 500,000 tonnes have been bought so far.
Truong Thanh Phong, Chairman of VFA, said the association's businesses needed to buy rice from farmers and any business that refuses to buy rice for storage would be penalised.
VFA said it set a floor price for exports of 25 per cent broken rice.
The price of 5 per cent and 10 per cent broken rice will be set by businesses in an aim to create favourable conditions for them to sign contracts.
In the first seven months, the country exported 3.94 million tonnes, earning an export turnover of $1.937 billion, an increase of 1.79 per cent compared to last year.
The export price has seen an increase of 27.94 per cent to $438.27 per tonne.
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