Vietnam's rice export prices advanced further in the past week, supported by new loading demand, even though supply is ample at the peak of the country's largest crop, traders said on Wednesday. Demand for Vietnamese rice is growing, with deals totalling more than 1 million tonnes sealed in recent weeks and Japan might even resume imports of the grain from the Southeast Asian country after a hiatus of several years, state media and traders had said.
Projected export levels are also healthy. Rice exports in the second quarter of this year would rise 8 percent from the previous three months to 2 million tonnes, the government said. This would be almost the same as the 2.02 million tonnes shipped in the same quarter of last year.
The volume in the quarter ending June will bring rice exports from Vietnam in first-half 2011 to 3.85 million tonnes, or 64 percent of the country's annual export target, the government said in a statement, citing Vietnam Food Association data. The statement gave no comparisons, but if 3.85 million tonnes would be loaded during the first six months, it would represent a rise of 11.3 percent from 3.46 million tonnes shipped in the same period last year, government statistics show.
The 5 percent broken rice grade rose about 4 percent in the past week to $470-$480 a tonne, free-on-board (FOB) Saigon Port, from $455-$460 a tonne last Wednesday and $455 two weeks ago. "We have to make the offer at that level as we need to take in the prospect of domestic prices rising at the time of loading," an exporter in Ho Chi Minh City said.
LOADING FOR BANGLADESH Loading demand included 100,000 tonnes of parboiled rice for Bangladesh, 250,000 tonnes for Cuba, 200,000 tonnes of the Philippines and 400,000 tonnes for Indonesia. "Shipment of rice from Vietnam has already started," a senior food official in Bangladesh said, referring to a government contract signed recently.
A contract for another 100,000 of white rice would be signed any time, he said without giving actual timeframe. In Vietnam's Mekong Delta winter-spring paddy prices held steady this week despite the harvest peak, standing at between 5,200 dong and 6,100 dong (24.9-29.2 US cents) per kg, little changed from 5,200-6,200 dong last week.
More than 60 percent of the winter-spring crop, Vietnam's largest with grain used mainly for export, has been harvested and paddy reaping will end later this month, the Vietnam Food Association said in a report. Traders said they have not heard of any demand for Vietnamese rice from Japan's private firms, running counter to a comment by the chairman of the food association published by the Agriculture Ministry-run Vietnam Agriculture newspaper on Tuesday.
Chairman Truong Thanh Phong was quoted as saying Japan may resume buying up to 250,000 tonnes of Vietnamese rice this year, after a halt since 2008 due to high level of pesticide residues. "It may have emerged at a higher level while on the corporate level we have not seen any demand from Japan, which often buys rice via auctions," another exporter in Ho Chi Minh City said.