Rice prices tipped to remain

The price of rice, especially the low-quality IR 50404, rose sharply this week, 10 days after the completion of a Government programme to buy 500,000 tonnes of the grain for reserve.

Yesterday farmers in the Mekong Delta sold undried IR 50404 paddy for VND4,800 to VND5,000 per kilogramme, and dried IR 50404 for VND5,600 - VND5,700.

Pham Thai Binh, director of Can Tho-based rice export firm Trung An Co, said rice prices increased by VND300-400 in the Mekong Delta provinces of An Giang, Dong Thap, and Tien Giang and Can Tho city in the past week.

Unpolished IR 50404 rice was sold for VND7,450-7,750, and long-grain rice for up to VND7,700. If polished, they fetched VND1,000 more.

Tran Ba Dai, a farmer in Vinh Hanh Commune in An Giang Province's Chau Thanh District, said these prices would fetch him profits of VND15 million per hectare.

"Farmers are very happy because they are selling paddy at the highest prices during this summer-autumn crop," Duong Nghia Quoc, director of the Dong Thap Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, told Viet Nam News yesterday.

At these prices, Dong Thap farmers can earn profits of 30 per cent as mandated by the Government, he said.

Tran Van Thom, a trader in An Giang Province's An Phu District, said it was the high demand for paddy from exporters and news about a new contract to sell 500,000 tonnes of rice to Indonesia that had helped push prices up.

The increasing volumes of rice bought by Cambodian traders across the border - for selling to Thailand — could push prices further up, he said.

Nguyen Trung Kien, general director of Gentraco Can Tho and deputy chairman of the Viet Nam Food Association, said rice export prices rose by US$5 per tonne from last week.

Now, 5 per cent broken rice fetched $430-440 per tonne, and 25 per cent broken rice, up to $415.

At a meeting held in Kien Giang in mid-August to collect opinions for drafting regulations on the rice reserve purchase, VFA chairman Truong Thanh Phong said paddy-rice prices would continue to rise for the rest of this year.

Source: www.agroviet.gov.vn