Vietnam's trade ministry wants the country's finance ministry to scrap an export tax on rice imposed two months ago, to help reach an annual grain shipment target of 4.6 million tonnes, a state-run newspaper reported on Friday. Rice prices in top world exporters of the grain Thailand, India and Vietnam have eased from their peaks in April.
This week Vietnamese 5 percent broken grain softened to $500-$510 a tonne, free-on-board, from $500-$515 a week ago and half its high of $1,000 a tonne in April. Benchmark Thai rice also fell below $700 per tonne for the first time this week.
Lifting Vietnam's tax on rice sold at $800 a tonne or more could boost exporters' purchases at home and secure export revenues as demand and prices have eased, the Liberation Saigon daily, run by the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee, said.
The rice market has been volatile and Vietnam's export prices have fallen significantly compared with early this year, causing "low economic efficiency", the newspaper quoted the Industry and Trade Ministry as saying in its proposal. Officials could not immediately be reached for comment.
On Thursday Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung told Vietnam's parliament, the National Assembly, that the country's rice output was rising, with a record extra 2.6 million tonnes of paddy more than last year. But he added, "The production, purchasing, storage, processing and sales of agricultural products still have low efficiency."
Rice traders have said exporters could avoid the tax by fixing selling prices below $800 a tonne. Last week a rice industry official said Vietnam was expected to double its rice export volume in the last three months of this year to 1 million tonnes to help meet the annual target. Vietnam's total rice shipment of 4.5 million tonnes in 2007 ranks it as the world's third-largest rice exporter, after Thailand and India.
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