Vietnamese rice prices stood nearly unchanged while Thai grain eased on Wednesday ahead of an import tender by the Philippines and amid a weaker baht. Vietnam's 5 percent broken grain stood at $325-$330 a tonne, free-on-board (FOB) Saigon Port, against $320-$335 at the start of the week, while Thai 5 percent broken grain was traded at $340-$348 a tonne, FOB Bangkok, down from $350-$355 on Monday.
The Philippines plans to buy more rice on top of its planned 750,000 tonnes of imports via a tender that will close on Thursday to beef up falling stocks amid a crop-damaging El Nino dry weather pattern. It is unclear how much rice Manila is seeking additionally but news on the Thursday tender for 750,000 tonnes, a third of which is to be imported during November-December, has halted falling prices in Vietnam, traders said.
But the small volume sought by the Philippines this year and the uncertainty of how much Vietnam, the world's third biggest exporter, could supply have pushed prices up, said a trader at a foreign firm in Ho Chi Minh City. However, "prices could go up if Vietnam wins at a good price," another trader said.
Vietnam's 25 percent broken rice sought by the Philippines fell to as low as $315/tonne on Wednesday, the lowest since July 2010, based on Reuters data. The price range of the type widened to $315-$320 a tonne, from $318-$320 a week ago. Vietnam's rice exports in the first eight months of 2015 fell 9.7 percent from a year ago to 4.05 million tonnes, Vietnam's customs department said on Wednesday. In Thailand, the world's second biggest exporter of the grain, a weaker baht against the US dollar has sent the FOB price in dollar terms lower while the market was quiet amid thin trading, said a Thai rice trader. The Thai baht has fallen more than 9 percent against the dollar so far this year, Thomson Reuters data showed.