Vietnam ups 2011 rice export forecast

Vietnam's rice exports this year could reach a record of 7.5 million tonnes, the Agriculture Ministry said, revising its previous projection of 7.3 million tonnes. The new export volume would generate $3.72 billion in revenue, also up from an earlier projection of $3.55 billion, the ministry said in a report seen by Reuters on Wednesday.
Rising export volume so far this year and higher export price have influenced the forecast, the report said. The ministry's forecast is above a projection of 7 million tonnes by the Vietnam Food Association (VNA). Last year Vietnam, the world's second-largest rice exporter, shipped a record of 6.83 million tonnes of the grain. January-September rice exports increased 13 percent from a year ago to an estimated 6.08 million tonnes, the government said last month.
Export prices rose nearly 1 percent last week, with the 5 percent broken grade hitting $575 a tonne and was heading towards the highest level in more than three years, on demand from Indonesia and Mekong Delta flooding impact, traders said. Rice grade one, used to process the 5-percent and 10-percent broken varieties, rose to 9.1-9.2 million dong ($438-$443) per tonne on Wednesday in the Mekong Delta, up around 4 percent in the past month as a major crop harvest has ended there.
The grain grade 2, used for making the 15-percent and 25-percent broken varieties usually bought by the Philippines and Indonesia, also rose to 9.05-9.1 million dong a tonne from 8.5-8.65 million dong in early September. Indonesia has overtaken the Philippines to become Vietnam's top rice buyer this year, having bought 17 percent of the country's export volume in the January-August period, followed by the Philippines with 16 percent, the report said.
"The Philippines will soon buy rice again due to serious storm and flood impacts while its stocks are falling, and Vietnamese rice will be its number one choice," Deputy Chairman Pham Van Bay of the Vietnam Food Association was quoted as saying. But a Philippine government official said on Wednesday there was no immediate need for imports because of ample buffer stocks, even though two strong typhoons that hit the country in a week damaged about 760,000 tonnes of paddy yet to be harvested.
VNA's Bay could not immediately be reached for comment. The food association is the industry body looking after Vietnam's rice export and its chairman is also the head of Vinafood 2, the country's largest rice exporter. Vietnamese rice prices could stay high until June 2012 as Thai prices have been rising quickly, Bay was quoted by the official Tuoi Tre newspaper as telling a news briefing in Ho Chi Minh City on Tuesday.The main export rice grade from Thailand, the world's top exporter, was offered at up to $660 a tonne last week, from $595 in the previous week, as exporters said operators were holding on to supply ahead of a government intervention scheme to support prices.