Vietnam plans to load 1 million tonnes of rice in October, which would take total exports this year to a record 5.8 million tonnes, a state-run newspaper said on Monday. Vietnam Food Association Chairman Truong Thanh Phong said exporters had signed deals to ship 6.3 million tonnes in total, although 500,000 tonnes of that would be loaded in 2010, Liberation Saigon daily reported.
Phong gave no further details of the deals signed so far. Rice shipments of nearly 250,000 tonnes in the first 25 days of September brought the accumulated volume since the start of 2009 to 4.82 million tonnes, up 40 percent from the same period last year, data from the food association shows. But revenue from sales of the grain dropped to $1.96 billion from $2.09 billion in the same period last year.
Vietnam exported at record 5.25 million tonnes of rice in 2005. The volume contracted for 2009 is above a USDA forecast for the whole year of 5.7 million tonnes. Last week Vietnam, the world's second-largest rice exporter after Thailand, signed an agreement with East Timor that envisaged annual rice sales of up to 200,000 tonnes. Other regular rice buyers include the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Iraq and Cuba.