Rice sales in Vietnam slowed in the past week on thinning supply and a shortage of ships for new export cargoes, traders said on Wednesday. "The stock available for export is very limited right now and most of the supply in the warehouses has already been taken for government contracts to Indonesia and the Phillipines," a trader in Ho Chi Minh City said.
This week the government statistics office estimated rice shipments in the first half of 2007 would fall about 19 percent from a year ago to 2.32 million tonnes, a third of which went to Indonesia. Rice export revenues were also expected to fall 5.6 percent compared to the same period last year to $731 million.
Another trader in Ho Chi Minh City said high freight rates, which have jumped more than 30 percent from the beginning of the year, had also curbed new export deals. Freight to Africa has jumped to around $120-$130 a tonne from just $80-$90 in March.
The high freight has curbed exports to traditional buyers such as Cuba and Russia which reported a fall of 75 percent and 67 percent respectively in rice shipments during the first half, state media quoted the Agriculture Ministry as saying.
"The fall in shipment to these key markets does not bode well for rice exports next year," the ministry said. On Wednesday traders said they did not offer any export quotes this week but prices for references only stood unchanged from last week. The 5-percent broken rice is at about $302 to $305 a tonne, free on board at Saigon Port.
The 25-percent broken rice was also unchanged at $285 free-on-board. This week, four ships are loading 22,600 tonnes of the 25-percent broken grade for the Philippines while six other vessels have left the port with 47,600 tonnes of the same grade also for the Philippines.