HANOI: Vietnamese rice export prices will remain high through June because of loading demand, with Chinese firms alone having bought 130,000 tonnes, state-run newspapers reported.
Rising prices are benefiting farmers in Vietnam, the world's second-largest exporter, but as prices have risen above those in top exporter Thailand, they may undermine efforts by regional policymakers to contain inflation.
Vietnam's 5 percent broken rice rose about 4 percent in the past week to $470-$480 a tonne, free-on-board basis, while Thai rice of the same grade eased 1 percent to $460 a tonne from $465 last week due mostly to thin demand.
Thai prices were likely to fall further as buyers have turned to Vietnam, traders in Thailand said.
While Vietnamese rice prices are less than half the record $1,000 a tonne in May 2008, this week's quotations have risen 22.4 percent from the same time last year.
Inflation in developing Asia is expected to quicken to an average 5.3 percent this year from 4.4 percent in 2010, while countries such as Vietnam and Pakistan could see double-digit rates, the Asian Development Bank said on Wednesday.
GAINING MARKET SHARE
Rice stockpiles in India and China are high while the Philippines, Indonesia and Bangladesh have been stepping up imports due to low stocks, Vietnam Food Association Chairman Truong Thanh Phong was quoted by the Vietnam Economic Times newspaper as saying.
Vietnam, which is harvesting another bumper winter-spring crop in the first months of 2011, has covered the demand. Its sales to Indonesia helped offset the drop in supply to the Philippines, another key buyer, Phong said.
"We have been proactive in securing contracts for the second quarter so between now and the end of the quarter rice prices in the country will stay at a high level and are unlikely to drop," he said in an interview with the newspaper.
"Besides, we also secured Bangladesh's market from India, Pakistan and Thailand," he said.
Bangladesh has bought 100,000 tonnes of Vietnamese parboiled rice and was going to sign a deal for another 100,000 tonnes of white rice, a Bangladeshi senior food official said on Wednesday.
Vietnam's rice exports in the second quarter would rise 8 percent from the previous three months to 2 million tonnes, the government said on Wednesday, close to the 2.02 million tonnes shipped in the same period in 2010.
The volume bought by more than 20 Chinese companies accounts for nearly 9 percent of the 1.5 million tonnes due for loading in the second quarter, Chairman Phong was quoted by the official Liberation Saigon daily as telling an industry meeting.
Rice exporters gathered in the Mekong Delta city of Can Tho on Wednesday to review first-quarter performance, progress of the plan to stockpile 1 million tonnes of winter-spring rice and plans for the upcoming summer-autumn crop production.
Phong said the association could also stockpile the grain to ensure domestic prices stay above 5,000 dong (24 US cents) per kg, the threshold for the winter-spring crop, which produces grain of higher quality.
Vietnam has projected to export 6 million tonnes of rice this year after a record shipment of 6.83 million tonnes in 2010.
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.