Vietnam to export over six million tonnes of rice

Vietnam's rice exports in 2011 could rise beyond its initial projection of 6.0 million tonnes, given its total grain available for sales abroad at 6.6 million tonnes this year, a state-run newspaper reported on Tuesday. The higher export capacity in Vietnam, the world's second-largest rice exporter after Thailand, could help cool Asian grain price pressure partly in 2011 when global demand is expected to rise while output could drop.
Vietnam will produce 25 million tonnes of milled rice this year, of which 5.8 million to 6.0 million tonnes can be exported, Vietnam Food Association Chairman Truong Thanh Phong was quoted by the Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper as saying. "If adding around 600,000 tonnes currently in companies' stocks, Vietnam is fully capable of exporting 6.6 million tonnes of rice in 2011," Phong said in an interview with the newspaper run by the Communist Youth League in Ho Chi Minh City.
"If bumper harvests emerge and the paddy output rises significantly, we will export more than planned, like (we did) in 2010," said Phong, who also heads the Ho Chi Minh City-based Vinafood 2, the country's largest rice exporter. Vietnam initially projected to export between 5.5 million and 6.2 million tonnes of rice in 2010, but the Southeast Asian country ended the year with a record shipment of 6.83 million tonnes, up 14.6 percent from 2009.
While complicated weather could make it difficult to forecast global rice production, the overall consumption could rise 3 percent while output would drop 3 percent, Phong said in the interview with the newspaper without giving any figures. "Consumer demand in the first months of the year will rise, so prices will increase definitely," Phong added. To prepare for higher demand, the food association, which oversees Vietnam's rice exports, has raised the minimum price by 2 percent to $490 a tonne for the 25 percent broken grain often sold to the world's top buyer, the Philippines. In late February Vietnam will begin the harvest of its largest rice crop, the winter-spring crop, and traders said demand could emerge when domestic prices soften due to supply picking up.
Phong said the price of the grain could not fall beyond 5 million dong ($257) per tonne as Vietnam already has 600,000 tonnes committed for loading in the first two months of 2011. In the last week of 2010, the price of summer-autumn paddy, which has lower quality than the winter-spring grain, stood at 5.7-7.1 million dong per tonne in the Mekong Delta food basket, from 5.5-7.0 million dong a week ago.