The availability of relatively cheap rice from India continued to depress demand for grain from Thailand and Vietnam, the world's top two exporters, this week but prices in Thailand held up due to government intervention, dealers said.
Benchmark 100 percent B grade Thai white rice was steady at $620 a tonne. Vietnam's 5 percent broken rice eased marginally to $550-$560 a tonne, free on board Saigon Port, from last week's $560-$570. Its 25 percent broken rice fell to $505-$510 a tonne from $540-$545. "Indian rice is cheaper, so the market here is very quiet and exporters are only looking forward to demand from the Philippines," a Ho Chi Minh City-based trader said.
"Since India announced its resumption of rice exports, Vietnam's market has been quiet," another Vietnamese trader said, noting that domestic supply was thin. Offering prices of $430-$460 a tonne, India, the world's second-biggest rice producer, has contracted to sell around 1.5-1.8 million tonnes to overseas buyers since September, including various African and Middle Eastern countries plus Asian nations such as Bangladesh.
On Tuesday, Indonesia bought 250,000 tonnes from Indian suppliers at $483 per tonne on a delivered basis, according to an Indian trade source with direct knowledge of one of the deals and a rice trader in Indonesia. India is sitting on a huge inventory. On October 1, stocks in government warehouses stood at 20.3 million tonnes against a target of 5.2 million and the country is heading for a bumper harvest for the second year in a row, with monsoon rain expected to be normal.
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