Vietnamese Rice Prices Slightly Up in Int'l Market
The export prices of Vietnamese rice have slightly been climbing up since early this week thanks to high global demand and limited domestic supply.
Farmers in the Mekong Delta region, considered the rice bowl of Vietnam, have completed harvesting the summer-autumn rice crop. It means that no more rice will be stocked in the coming weeks while the next harvesting season will not start until December.
Rice traders said supply would not increase in the coming months, adding pressure on export prices.
In Ho Chi Minh City and the Mekong Delta region, domestic rice exporters have lifted their selling prices of high-quality 5 per cent broken rice to US$242-265 per ton from around US$240-260 a week earlier.
Vietnam's biggest rice exporter, the Southern Food Corporation, has also increased its prices for government-level contracts by $2 per ton to $275 for one ton of 5 per cent broken rice and to $265 for one ton of 25 per cent broken rice.
Experts from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) forecast that rice prices may double in 2008 against the current averaged level of around $218 per ton in international market.
The price hike is attributed to soaring demands from China, the largest rice consumer in the world and increasing production costs in the world’s major rice suppliers such as Thailand and Vietnam.
Vietnam, the world’s second biggest rice exporter after Thailand, caps rice exports at five million tons this year to ensure national food security. It exported more than 5.2 million tons for nearly $1.4 billion last year.
VNA
Vietnamese
