Rice prices in Vietnam, the world's second-largest exporter of the grain, have risen sharply this week as exporters scramble to snap up thinning supplies for fresh overseas demands, traders said on Wednesday. This week, the Philippines awarded 320,000 tonnes of either 15 or 25 percent broken rice to five Vietnamese suppliers with state-run Vietnam Southern Food Corp supplying the bulk of it at $282.98 per tonne, including cost and freight.
"The Philippines' win had a huge impact on local rice trading with everyone now rushing to scrape together whatever stocks they can find," said a trader with a foreign firm in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam's largest grain trading centre.
Traders said the rice rush was triggered by talk that the Philippines' National Food Authority (NFA) was planning another tender in February for at least 380,00 tonnes.
National Food Authority officials have said that because of bad weather, Manila needed to import up to 1.6 million tonnes of the grain this year compared with a 985,000 tonne shortfall last year.
On Wednesday, quotations for 5 percent broken rice rose more than 6 percent to $255 a tonne, free-on-board Saigon Port, compared with a range of $238 to $240 a tonne a week ago.