First rice exchange to open on November 26

Vietnam, the world's second-biggest rice exporter, will open the country's first exchange for the grain on November 26 to boost trading, an official said.
"The exchange is designed to create more favorable conditions for sellers and buyers to meet and conduct transactions," Nguyen Van Dong, director of Hau Giang Province Agriculture and Rural Development Department, said in a telephone interview Wednesday.
The exchange will be located in Hau Giang in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam's main rice-growing area.
About 30 companies have so far registered to trade on the exchange, most of them subsidiaries of Vietnam Southern Food Corp., one of the country's two biggest state-owned agricultural produce companies that manage domestic food supplies, Dong said.
"Initially, it will handle physical contracts and, when more companies participate, we expect it will also offer futures contracts," Dong said.