Vietnam freezes rice exports
Rice prices have risen about 20% in recent months to 2.9m
Vietnamese dong (£136; $193) per tonne from 2.4m dong in May and
June.
The winter-spring crop will yield between February and April
Traders in Vietnam have been running out of stock ahead of the
winter-spring crop planting season, which starts next month and
produces yields between February and April.
During the first 10 months of this year, they exported almost 10%
more rice than last year.
Running out of rice
Vietnam's rice shortage is partly due to a reduction in Vietnam's
rice planting area after serious floods last year interrupted the
autumn crop.
Total rice production for the year is predicted to fall to 31.9
million tonnes from last year's 32.5 million tonnes.
At the same time, total exports for the year are expected to rise
6.4% to 3.7 million tonnes.
The freeze on new contracts to export rice will retain more of the
staple crop as food for the Vietnamese people.
This should help curb price rises at home.
Cheap rice internationally
Paradoxically, while rice prices have risen in Vietnam, they have
fallen internationally.
Despite the near 10% rise in exports during the first 10 months of
the year, the value of the exports fell 6.1%.
The low international prices has eased delivery fears among
Vietnam's rice traders, who have signed contracts to export more
rice than they have in stock.
The export freeze had no impact on the market, said one rice
trader.
No deals have been struck, anyway, since the beginning of November
because of the high prices, he added.
"Offers of Vietnamese rice have been $20 higher than Thai rice, so
nobody wanted to buy from Vietnam," he said.
Traders who have to deliver rice to other countries to honour
contracts they signed earlier this year have begun buying rice in
third countries rather than shipping Vietnamese rice.
Vietnam's state-run Southern Food recently bought 10,000 tonnes of
rice in Thailand and shipped it straight to its customers in
Russia, the trader said.
BBC News - November 21st, 2001.
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