Source: Vietnam Net
05/02/2012 – Le Truong Son, general director of Docimexco Dong Thap, said it is difficult to sign commercial contracts at present. Importers mainly come back to study prices, waiting for the peak harvest season of the winter-spring rice crop in late February and early March this year.
Meanwhile, Pham Quang Dieu, an expert of the market research firm AgroMonitor, said buyers and sellers are exploring each other while pending new developments on the rice market.
Vietnamese and Thai rice are still priced higher than Indian rice, resulting in the market slowdown.
According to a HCMC-based rice export enterprise, there are cases in which importers insist local firms to sell products at lower prices than the floor export prices regulated by the Vietnam Food Association (VFA) effective since January 18. Particularly, the FOB floor prices of the 5%, 10%, 15% and 25% broken rice are regulated at US$450, US$445, US$435 and US$425 per ton respectively.
In comparison with the floor export prices applicable from December 22 last year, the new prices are lower by US$45-50 a ton, equivalent to 10%. Rice exporters said such an adjustment was to attract large contracts.
According to VFA, local enterprises have signed deals to export one million tons of rice in this quarter, against 1.8 million in the same period last year. The delivery dates are extended to August, instead of within the quarter like in 2011.
Therefore, the rice export volume in the first months of the year will drop year-on-year.
The association has set the target to export 6.5-7 million tons of rice in 2012. Vietnam last year exported 7.1 million tons of rice, bringing in the export turnover of US$3.5 billion.
Indonesia is Vietnam’s biggest rice importer in 2011, with 1.9 million tons worth US$1 billion, but earlier this week this country has signed a memorandum to purchase 100,000-200,000 tons of the 5% broken rice from Myanmar after the latter lifted the rice export ban.
Indonesia’s deal to import rice from Myanmar is to reduce the dependence on the supply sources from Vietnam and Thailand.