India's PEC gets 7 bids for rice tender

India has received seven bids for one of its tenders to buy rice and the federal government said on Monday there may not be any imports on top of its move to ship 30,000 tonnes.

India, the world's second-biggest rice producer, floated three tenders to import a total of 30,000 tonnes of rice last month, through state-owned companies MMTC, STC STC.BO, and PEC Ltd. to meet an output shortfall.

"I do not think so," Junior Farm Minister K.V. Thomas told reporters when asked whether there would be a further need for rice imports.

In the PEC tender the bidders, including Swiss trader Ameropa and the Singapore arm of Louis Dreyfus, have offered rice varieties from Pakistan, Thailand, Vietnam and Myanmar, government sources said.

The officials said the price bids will be opened later.

News of India's rice tender came as the Philippines, the world's biggest rice buyer, comes back to the market for the second time in a month with a tender for 600,000 tonnes of rice in December, its largest ever single buy that could see prices spike. [ID:nMAN394827]

India's rice output is set to plunge this year after the worst June-September monsoon rains in decades destroyed crops or delayed sowing, while subsequent floods in some states further ravaged rice fields.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture had forecast a 15-million to 17-million tonne fall in India's rice output for the marketing year 2009/10 from a record 99.2 million tonnes in 2008/09. [ID:nN26205665]

Chicago Board of Trade rice futures rose on Friday, with the most-active January contract RRF0 climbing nearly 1 percent to $15.29 per hundredweight, not far from a contract high reached last week.