Foreign traders said they had signed two contracts with Vietnam in the past week for a combined volume of 20,000 tonnes of rice for unspecified destinations in Africa, suggesting Vietnam's tight supplies may have eased.
In February the Vietnam Food Association advised its members to refrain from signing new deals for shipments before the end of June, ahead of the next rice crop, in order to cope with the tightness of domestic supplies caused by a large number of commitments.
"But the new contracts were signed just last week. The association's policy was aimed at only the food companies which did not have stocks," a foreign trader in Ho Chi Minh City told Reuters on Wednesday.
Traders said one contract priced 10,000 tonnes of five percent broken rice at $240 a tonne, FOB Saigon Port, for shipment this month to Africa.
The other contract was sealed for 15 percent broken rice at $226 per tonne, FOB basis, for May shipment, they said.
Another Ho Chi Minh City-based trader said the sellers were two state firms and members of the association, which accounts for about 90 percent of Vietnam's annual rice exports.
Harvesting of Vietnam's highest yielding winter-spring crop in the Mekong Delta's rice basket has been completed, filling warehouses there with fresh grain, traders said.
The second trader said signing new contracts now was profitable, since local prices had been firming on a busy loading schedule at the country's key Saigon Port, where 16 vessels have been taking a combined 280,320 tonnes this week.
For instance, quotations of the 15 percent broken rice this week have firmed to $230 to $235 a tonne, from the contracted price last week of $226.
Vietnam is the world's second-largest rice exporter, after Thailand. Its key African buyers include Algeria and Tanzania while the continent is Vietnam's second largest buyer after Asia.
Vietnam shipped 778,000 tonnes of rice to Africa in 2003, nearly 20 percent of its grain exports for the year.
It has tentatively targeted total exports this year at 3.5 million tonnes.