Vietnam's rice prices rise, major harvest nearing an end

Vietnam's rice export prices rose as much as 6.6 percent in the past week despite ample supplies, as the harvest of the country's top rice crop was nearing an end while loading demand held firm for existing contracts, traders said on Wednesday.
Vietnamese rice prices get support from a number of contracts signed in recent weeks for Bangladesh, Cuba, the Philippines and Indonesia at a combined volume of nearly 1 million tonnes. The 25 percent broken rice jumped 6.6 percent to $440-$445 a tonne, free-on-board Saigon Port, from $415 last Wednesday, while the 5 percent broken grain also edged up to $475-$480 a tonne against $470-$480 last week.
"Buyers are still not coming but prices have significantly risen this week," a trader in Ho Chi Minh City said, referring to both export quotations and paddy prices on domestic markets. Winter-spring paddy prices rose to 5.6-6.4 million dong ($268-$306) per tonne this week in the Mekong Delta food basket, from 5.2-6.3 million dong last week. Farmers in the delta have harvested more than 85 percent of the winter-spring crop, Vietnam's largest with grain used mainly for export, the Vietnam Food Association said in a report.
The harvest is due to end this month while farmers have also started planting the next summer-autumn crop. The region is on track to harvest 10.35 million tonnes of winter-spring paddy, up from 10.27 million tonnes last year, the Vietnam Agriculture newspaper cited the Agriculture Ministry's Cops Department estimate as saying.
"Buyers, including those from Africa, are absent, probably because prices in Vietnam have been rising," another trader said. He said the demand was thin in the region also because the rice market in Thailand was close on Wednesday for a public holiday. Thailand and Vietnam are the world's two largest rice exporters. "With domestic prices rising, exporters who are loading for the Philippines may face losses, but since the contract is a government deal, there should be no delays," he said.
Rice exporters have nearly completed a government-backed scheme aimed at stockpiling 2 million tonnes of winter-spring paddy to support prices, traders said. Vietnam revised up by a quarter its rice export forecast for this year to a record high of 7.1 million to 7.4 million tonnes, citing rising shipments in the first quarter, the Agriculture Ministry said last Friday.