Vietnamese rice export prices have held at high levels in the past week thanks to demand in Southeast Asia and Africa, traders said on Wednesday. They said trading firms were seeking low grade 15-percent and 25-percent broken rice to sell to African countries. In Asia, government sources said on Wednesday that the Philippines would hold a tender in June to buy 250,000 tonnes of 25-percent broken rice.
"However, Vietnam does not have the low quality grain at this time," a trader in Ho Chi Minh City said. Another trader said the news had not influenced Vietnamese rice prices because the quantity was modest. Farmers in the Mekong delta rice basket completed harvesting their best-quality, highest-yielding winter-spring crop last month.
The crop totalled around 9 million tonnes of paddy, similar to last year, and is a good source of high quality 5-percent broken rice. Export prices of the grade ranged between $296 and $303 a tonne, free on board Saigon Port, against $298 to $305 last week.
Exporters did not offer 25-percent broken rice but indicative prices for the grain stood unchanged at $285 a tonne. The first trader said Vietnamese prices might rise in the next month after the end of the harvest while India and Pakistan did not have much to offer.
"The rice supply is mostly available from Vietnam and Thailand," he said. The two countries are the world's biggest rice exporters. Farmers in the Mekong delta are planting their next crop, the summer-autumn crop. The harvest often starts in late June and peaks in July before seasonal floods arrive in the region.
Traders said recent showers at the start of the rainy season this month had been good for rice production in the delta. State media reported that floods brought by torrential rains this week-affected transport in the central province of Ninth Than as well as parts of the central highland province of Lam Dong.
However, the affected areas are far from the key rice-growing region further south. While prolonged rains may slow rice loading at Saigon Port, progress at the port this week has been smooth, traders said. Nine vessels have been loading 112,200 tonnes of rice for Iran, the Philippines, Indonesia and Cuba. Last week five vessels left with 36,300 tonnes of rice for Indonesia and the Philippines.