Indonesia has suspended all rice imports for the year after securing a deal for 300,000 tonnes of the grain from Vietnam, which replaces a government-to-government pact reportedly cancelled by Thailand, an official said on Thursday. With this deal, and purchases from India and Thailand, state procurement agency Bulog has filled its 1.6 million-tonne quota for 2011, said Bulog CEO Sutarto Alimoeso.
"We have signed a contract to buy additional rice of 300,000 tonnes from Vietnam, which takes the total rice import from Vietnam to 1.2 million tonnes this year," Alimoeso told Reuters. He added that Indonesia also had commercial rice deals in place from India for 250,000 tonnes and Thailand for 150,000 tonnes.
A Vietnamese trader working for a foreign firm in Ho Chi Minh City also said Indonesia bought 300,000 tonnes of 15-percent broken rice from Vietnam at $545 a tonne, free-on-board (FOB) basis, half to be loaded in December and another half in January 2012.
"(Export) prices will not be affected by this deal because Vietnamese prices currently are already high and the exporter has stocks which it likes to clear up as it also needs to repay bank loans," the trader said. Three traders in Ho Chi Minh City earlier said that Indonesia had bought 150,000 tonnes under the latest deal. Vietnam Food Association officials and the head of Vinafood 2, believed to be the exporter in the deal, were unavailable for comment. Vietnam's Agriculture Ministry data showed the country has loaded 1.18 million tonnes of rice to Indonesia between January and September, a sharp rise from 353,000 tonnes in the same period last year.
This year, one of Indonesia's regular suppliers Thailand, has hiked prices and been hit by severe flooding, triggering interest in other supplies, like Vietnam, India and Pakistan. The world's largest rice exporter had reportedly scrapped a 300,000-tonne government deal with Indonesia. "For the time being, we stop buying rice from international markets because the whole rice import quotas of 1.6 million tonnes have been fulfilled so far," Alimoeso said.
However, he said it is possible that the Indonesian government could issue additional rice import permits beyond the current 1.6 million-tonne quota, due to a domestic rice shortage. "So, we are waiting for the newest development from the government, whether it needs additional rice imports or not," he added. Earlier this month, the statistics bureau said Indonesia's unmilled rice production would be 65.39 million tonnes in 2011, 3.9 percent lower than a previous forecast.
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