Vietnam, the world's second-largest rice exporter after Thailand, is expected to produce a record high 41.02 million tonnes of paddy this year, up 2.6 percent from 2010, the government said on Friday. Higher production of the staple in Vietnam will not only help secure more food security for a population of 87 million, but also raise the country's export capacity, thus helping to ease pressure on regional and global food supply.
The higher output, up from the farm ministry's July forecast of 40.78 million tonnes, could put Vietnam on track to meet the Agriculture Ministry's expectations of record rice shipments of up to 7.43 million tonnes this year. Shipments hit a record 6.83 million tonnes in 2010.
The country will have 7.69 million tonnes of milled rice available for export this year, after deducting domestic consumption, post-harvest losses and grain used for feed, the government said in a statement, citing Agriculture Ministry data.
Adopting technology and using good varieties of high-yielding grain plus favourable weather means a bumper crop for the Southeast Asian country, the government said. The latest forecasts comments came after rice prices jumped in the Mekong Delta food basket and rice exporters voiced concern over demand for Vietnamese agro-products by Chinese firms.
China has emerged as one of Vietnam's top 10 rice buyers this year, having bought nearly 220,000 tonnes of the grain in the first half of this year through official trade, agriculture ministry data show. It did not buy from Vietnam in the first half of 2010.
Traders said Vietnam had also been exporting rice in border trade with China but official statistics do not cover that. State-run media estimated 100,000 tonnes was exported to China via border trade in the first four months of 2011.
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.