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Positive signs in rice export |
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Thursday, 25 March 2010 |
The Vietnam Food Association
(VFA) reported that the country has so far exported 983,275 tonnes of
rice. In the first 18 days of March 2010, 272,890 tonnes of rice were
exported at an average price of USD464.44 per tonne on Free on Board or
FOB delivery.
Over the past week, local rice price saw few changes thanks to the Government’s promoting rice purchasing. Rice for production increased to VND5.57-5.63 million per tonne in An Giang compared to VND5.55-5.6 million per tonne of the previous week. As scheduled, the rice output of the winter-summer crop in the Mekong River Delta will reach 10 million tonnes.
Although businesses said that the local rice export market is not busy now, the VFA believed there would be future demands from the Indonesian and African markets and that local businesses would boost rice exports in the near future.
According to Antara, the KTNA, National Outstanding Farmer and Fisherman Association, of Indonesia said the country would need to import rice this year if it did not make efforts to increase its output. Indonesia’s forecasted rice output is to increase by 0.88% but not 3.22% as expected, said Chairman of KTNA Winarno Tohir. India also intends to import 240,000 tonnes of rice this year.
Some African countries plan to import rice after suspension. The Africa formerly was the largest rice importer of Vietnam, accounting for 15-20% of Vietnam’s annually exported rice output.
Mr. Namadou Samb, representative from the West African Economic and Monetary Union (IUEMOA) said that the region has over 80 million people demanding a huge volume of rice, but until the end of 2009 Vietnam's rice only accounts for 14% of the market share, much lower than Thailand's 36%. In 2008, through November 18th, Vietnam exported about one million tonnes of rice to Africa, equalling 25.6% of the total rice export.
Vice Chairman of VFA, Pham Van Bay said that although rice export in the first three months of 2010 decreased compared to the same period last year, the above positive signs from the markets will make Vietnam’s rice export target realised, especially when local businesses’ rice reserve has reached nearly 3 million tonnes. The VFA is now encouraging its members to set up reserve plans to raise their reserved rice output to 4 million tonnes.
(CPV)
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