Vietnamese rice export prices held steady on thin buying demand, partly after China slowed its cross-border purchases, while Thai prices stayed at nine-month highs, traders said on Wednesday. The 5 percent broken rice stood unchanged since late April at $370-$375 a tonne, free on board Saigon Port. "The market has not moved, even after the election results in the Philippines," a trader at a foreign firm in Ho Chi Minh City said.
"Vietnamese rice prices are not attractive now, so the Philippines may not buy anything soon," he said. The Philippines, one of Vietnam's major rice importers, has said it planned to import 500,000 tonnes to boost state reserves. Manila has not made any move forward on the import and may do so only after the situation in the country stabilises post-elections, traders said.
China, another major rice buyer, has launched a campaign to fight rice smuggling across its southern border starting on March 26, the Vietnam Food Association said in a letter to rice export companies. "As China has shut the border against rice, Vietnam's sales have slowed," another trader in Ho Chi Minh City said. Thailand and Vietnam, the world's second- and third-biggest rice exporters after India, account for a combined 40 percent of the global rice trade.
Thai 5-percent broken rice quotations also remained unchanged at $398-$400 a tonne, FOB Bangkok, on a lack of fresh demand, traders said. At $400 a tonne, the price is the highest since July 24, 2015, according to Reuters data. "There's no demand, and there's no supply either," a trader in Bangkok said. "It's hard to predict what will happen next."
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