VN rice exports hit 3-year high

Stacks of rice packages inside a storehouse at the Kien Giang Import and Export Joint Stock Company. — VNA/VNS Photo Trọng Đạt

HÀ NỘI — The price of Vietnamese export rice has hit a three-year high thanks to the rising import demands and the restricted supply source.

According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the demand for Việt Nam’s 5 per cent broken rice, has been rising, hitting US$390 per tonne in the early days of June, against $360 per tonne to $380 per tonne in late May.

This is the highest price since December 2014, the ministry said, attributing it to the rising global demand for rice imports, especially in the Asian region.

The export price rise has also caused the paddy price in the domestic market to soar. A tonne of 5 per cent broken rice in the domestic market stood between VNĐ7.65 million ($340) and VNĐ7.75 million in early June, up VNĐ550,000 ($24) per tonne against last month.

The global rice market has been heating up after top importing countries, such as Bangladesh and the Philippines, announced to import roughly 950,000 tonnes of rice recently.

Bangladesh last month said it would buy 250,000 tonnes to 300,000 tonnes of Vietnamese rice immediately and planned to increase its rice imports from Việt Nam to 500,000 tonnes by the end of 2017.

It will also buy one million tonnes of Vietnamese rice annually until 2022.

The Philippines also said that it would issue a tender late this month or July to import 250,000 tonnes of the grain from key suppliers Thailand, Việt Nam and India.

Besides this, to meet the demand for rice until the year-end, as well as up to the first quarter of 2018, the Philippines is expected to import at least 1.5 million tonnes to 1.6 million tonnes of rice.

Other regional countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia have also planned to import rice, while the demand for rice in China and Africa is also on the upward curve.

While the demand for rice is rising, supply sources are restricted, even "being exhausted", international experts said.

At a rice conference in Bangkok, Thailand, on May 29, executive manager of Rice Trader Jeremy Zwinger said that the global sources of rice supply have been constricted. Even Thailand’s abundant stockpile of rice has fallen sharply.

In Thailand, in May, the rice stockpile was only 4.32 million tonnes. In late May, Thailand floated tenders to sell 1.82 million tonnes of rice. Thailand’s ability to sell rice in the coming months will be severely limited, as the country’s paddy harvest, having an output of three million tonnes, is in September.

In Việt Nam, the domestic stockpile is also restricted with most of the rice being exported to China. The country’s new paddy harvest season is in August.

The same trend is seen in India where rice exporters are facing the challenge of meeting their export contracts, until the next harvest season.

Experts have forecast that the global rice price will increase by roughly $20 per tonne in the next three months.

They have advised rice exporting enterprises to not sell the crop in a hurry, hoping that the price of 5 per cent broken rice would increase to at least $400 per tonne.