Vietnam rice stockpiled to stabilize prices

The Vietnam Food Association has asked its members to stockpile 500,000 tons of rice this month to stabilize decreasing domestic prices.

The association said the Mekong Delta, Vietnam's main food-growing region, had produced two million tons of rice for this summer-autumn crop.

Last month, association members stockpiled 490,841 tons of the grain, higher than the planned 400,000 tons, according to the Nong Nghiep Vietnam (Vietnamese Agriculture) newspaper.

As of the end of August, Vietnamese companies had signed contracts to export about 5.6 million tons of rice this year, the newspaper said.

Nguyen Tho Tri, deputy chairman of the association, said his agency found that seven rice companies had shipped rice abroad at lower-than-market prices, "seriously affecting the country's exports".

He said the association would ask the government to ban these companies from exporting in a year.

Vietnam, the world's second-biggest rice exporter after Thailand, may boost shipments this year by as much as 49 percent to 7 million tons, Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry Do Huu Hao said last month.