Vietnamese rice prices are rising sharply again and maintaining their position as the world’s highest. However, traditional partners have unexpectedly announced that they will import more rice than our country expected, so rice exports may set a record in both volume and value this year.
Rice prices increase in opposite direction to other countries
Information from the Vietnam Food Association (VFA) shows that, up to now, the price of Vietnamese rice is increasing compared to the price of rice from Thailand and Pakistan. Rice export Vietnam's 5% broken rice is currently trading at $575 per tonne, $14 per tonne higher than Thailand's equivalent, and $34 per tonne higher than Pakistani rice.
Similarly, Vietnam's 25% broken rice also increased to 539 USD/ton, higher than the same type of rice from Thailand and Pakistan by 27 USD/ton and 22 USD/ton, respectively. Compared to the world's top rice exporting countries, Vietnamese rice exports are at the highest price. This is also an impressive comeback of Vietnamese rice because a month ago, our country's rice export prices were lower than those of Thailand, Pakistan, and Myanmar. Notably, after winning the bid to export hundreds of thousands of tons of rice to Indonesia thanks to businesses offering low prices in June, Vietnamese rice prices have continuously dropped sharply, reaching the lowest level in the world.
Talk to PV Tien Phong , Mr. Nguyen Van Don, Director of Viet Hung Company Limited (Tien Giang) said that in the past half month, the company has continuously exported shipments to the Philippines market with a volume increase of more than 30% compared to July.
According to Mr. Don, usually the last months of the year are the time when countries increase rice imports. Notably, this year, the two largest rice consuming markets of Vietnam, the Philippines and Indonesia, have both announced an increase in rice imports.
Accordingly, the Philippines increased its rice imports from 4.2 million tons to 4.5 - 4.7 million tons. Meanwhile, Indonesia said it could import up to 4.3 million tons of rice instead of 3.6 million tons as announced from the beginning of 2024. The reason is that the country's rice output from the beginning of the year to August was 9.5% lower than the same period last year.
Explaining the return of Vietnamese rice prices, Mr. Don said that the Philippines' reduction of rice import tax from 35% to 15% has helped businesses in this country to boldly increase imports compared to before. Meanwhile, in our country, the Summer-Autumn crop is about to end and prepare for the Fall-Winter crop. Both of these crops are not the main production crops of the year, so the output is not large, pushing up rice prices.
Currently, Vietnamese rice has many varieties that are considered to be of the highest quality in the world. For example, Vietnam has a set of short-term fragrant rice varieties that can produce 2-3 crops per year, with high yield and fragrant sticky rice. This is a set of varieties that major producing and exporting countries such as India, Thailand, etc. do not have.
Mr. Nguyen Viet Anh - General Director of Phuong Dong Food Company Limited said that the demand for rice in the market has always been high in recent times, and the fluctuation of rice prices is partly affected by seasonality. Recently, Vietnamese enterprises are willing to offer low prices to win bids because the rice supply is purchased and stored from the beginning of the year, when Vietnam is in the main crop season, so the purchase price is also cheaper. At this time, when the supply is limited while countries are accelerating imports to prepare for the dry season next year, the price of rice is pushed up.
Mr. Viet Anh predicts that Vietnam's rice exports will likely remain stable and prices will increase until the end of this year if India has not yet lifted the ban on rice exports to stabilize domestic food security.
Forecast to set a new record of more than 5 billion USD
Statistics from the Vietnam Food Association show that in the past 7 months, Vietnam has exported over 5.1 million tons of rice, with a turnover of 3.2 billion USD, an increase of 25% in volume and 5.8% in value compared to the same period last year.
The average export price of Vietnamese rice is very high. At one point, the export price of Vietnamese rice to Brunei reached 959 USD/ton, to the US it reached 868 USD/ton, to the Netherlands it reached 857 USD/ton, to Ukraine it reached 847 USD/ton, to Iraq it reached 836 USD/ton, to Türkiye it reached 831 USD/ton...
Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Nam, Chairman of the Vietnam Food Association, assessed that import demand from traditional customers of Vietnamese rice such as the Philippines, Indonesia, Ghana, Malaysia, Singapore, etc. continues to remain high. Along with that, rice exporting enterprises are also actively expanding to new markets such as the Middle East, Africa, South America, Japan, Korea, etc. With the increasing import momentum of partners, Mr. Nam said that Vietnam's rice exports this year could reach about 8 million tons, earning more than 5 billion USD - a new record for the industry.
Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Phung Duc Tien said that since the beginning of the year, rice has been the fifth largest export item in the agricultural sector (after wood and wood products, seafood, vegetables, and coffee); and is also one of the items with a high growth rate.
According to Mr. Tien, currently, Vietnamese rice has many varieties that are considered to be of the highest quality in the world. For example, Vietnam has a set of short-term fragrant rice varieties that can produce 2-3 crops per year, with high yield and fragrant sticky rice. This is a set of varieties that major producing and exporting countries such as India, Thailand, etc. do not have.
More importantly, this variety helps Vietnam position a new rice segment in the world market, which is short-term fragrant rice with high yield and good quality. This is one of the important factors that helps increase the export price of Vietnamese rice in the world market, surpassing Thailand, Pakistan and India.
“Over the past 5 years, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, in collaboration with provinces, cities, farmers and businesses, has completely changed the quality of rice. Thanks to that, Vietnamese rice has a high price but countries still accept to buy it,” Deputy Minister Tien shared.
To promote rice exports in the last months of the year, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development will continue to coordinate with the Ministry of Industry and Trade, provinces and cities to organize conferences to assess the situation of domestic rice production and rice exports, while speeding up the implementation of the 1 million hectare high-quality rice project, focusing on removing obstacles for export enterprises.
Source
Comment (0)