The upcoming Lunar New Year (Tet) holidays in Vietnam, which fall on January 28 - February 2, is likely to delay rice shipment to Indonesia, an international website on rice trading quoted Indonesia’s Minister for State Enterprises Sugiharto as saying.
“Indonesia's state logistics agency Bulog, thus, won't be able to import all of a planned 110,000 tons of Vietnamese rice,” he said.
Bulog will only import 83,300 tons, which is expected to arrive in Indonesian ports by January 29, only a couple of days before the January 31 import deadline.
"It will be difficult to bring in the remaining amount before the deadline," Sugiharto added.
He, however, did not say whether the government would import the remaining volume after the deadline.
The office of the Minister for State Enterprises oversees all state enterprises, including Bulog.
The government late last year partially lifted a rice import ban by allowing Bulog to import rice to maintain government stocks at 1 million tons.
In November, the Ministry of Trade issued a permit to import 70,050 tons of rice. Early this month, the ministry issued another permit for Bulog to import 110,000 tons.
The ban on rice imports was imposed in January 2004, in an effort to address rampant smuggling of rice into the country, which had hurt the incomes of domestic farmers.
Indonesia was a key buyer of rice from Thailand and Vietnam before the ban, as domestic output lagged consumption.
Indonesia imported 1.45 million tons of rice in 2003, with Vietnam and Thailand accounting for 59 per cent and 39 per cent of imports.
Rice is a strategic commodity in Indonesia as about 90 per cent of its 220 million population is employed in the agricultural sector, many of whom grow rice.
Indonesia is expecting paddy output in 2006 to rise to around 54.86 million tons from 53.98 million in 2005.
Last year, Vietnam reportedly shipped 70,050 tons of rice to Indonesia, which would have had to import 250,000 tons of rice from Vietnam in order to fulfill bilateral commitments made between the two countries five years ago.
At present, Vietnam is the second biggest rice exporter after Thailand but ranks fourth in terms of rice export value. The country is expected to export about five million tons of rice this year, down 200,000 tons on-year, raking in US$1.4 billion, equal to last year.
Riceonline.com, Vietnam Panorama
Vietnamese
