Rice exports likely to decline

Pham Van Bay, VFA deputy chairman, said the decrease in rice exports would probably result from the low reserve volume of 800,000 tonnes of rice transferred from last year to 2011.This volume was much lower than the 1.4 million tonnes carried over from 2009.

Only 500,000 tonnes would be delivered in the early part of this year against 2.5 million tonnes delivered during the same period last year, Bay said.

Prices of the winter-spring crop would also rise because of higher production costs caused by fertiliser price hikes as well as the incidence of pests and diseases, he said.

Meanwhile, VFA members would purchase 1 million tonnes of rice in this winter-spring crop and 1 million tonnes of rice in the summer-autumn crop. This temporary stock would help stabilise the rice price, Bay said.

Last year, Viet Nam exported 6.8 million tonnes of rice worth US$3.23 billion, a record high export volume, according to the VFA.

In 2010, the average export price of Vietnamese increased by $22 per tonne to $511 for five-percent broken rice. For 25-percent broken rice, the price was $491.