Vietnamese Firms Ask for High-Quality Rice Exports
Vietnamese rice enterprises have proposed the Ministry of Trade (MoT) allow them to sign contracts to ship high-quality rice, such as sticky and fragrant rice.
The proposal was made at a conference, held by Vietnam Food Association (Vietfood) on January 24, and aimed to develop measures on rice exports for the year.
The Vietfood and MoT are urged to bring out stable rice export schemes to avoid export disruption as seen last year, which caused much trouble and loss to both enterprises and paddy growers.
Local rice traders are still banned from signing commercial export contracts as there have been no further guidelines from functional agencies so far.
The ministry, meanwhile, relieved enterprises and farmers by forecasting that rice exports in 2007 will have all the advantages of the market, demand and prices, as world demand for rice is rising.
As of January 15, Vietnamese enterprises had signed contracts to export a total of 1.6 million tons of rice, according to the association.
“All the contracts were signed by state-owned companies based in the Mekong delta region,” said an official from the association. (Youth)
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