Vietnam Minimum rice price to remain unchanged

The Vietnam Food Association (VFA) decided June 3 to keep the minimum price for the purchase of Mekong Delta farmers’ summer-autumn rice harvests unchanged from last month at VND4,000 per kilogram. The price management mechanism will be flexible to encourage domestic sales and dispose of rice stocks, said VFA at a meeting held in An Giang Province in June 6. VFA member companies admitted that the consumption of summer-autumn rice would be slow. However, they said, it was necessary to start the buying now, otherwise, the situation will worsen and the region will again face the “bumper crop, low price” situation that hurt many farmers during the last winter-spring crop. In the last winter-spring crop, under Government instructions, VFA bought 1.5 million tons of rice from farmers at a minimum price of VND4,000 per kilogram to stabilize prices and help farmers profit by at least 30 percent. Farmers expect to harvest about eight million tons of unhusked rice in mid-June amid forecasts that prices will be low. According to VFA, some 712,000 tons of rice were exported in May while the target set for May was 650,000 tons. The delivery volume was the highest ever after beating the previous record delivery of 710,000 tons made in April 2009. The average export price was US$454.03 per ton, up US$42.54 over the same period last year. Rice exports surged sharply in April and May, to 1.4 million tons. However, rice stocks reduced only slightly as the exported rice was supplied from already available sources on the market. The stock left from the purchase of the last winter-spring rice harvests is now about 1.5 million tons.