In the first four months of this year, Vietnam exported 1.674 million tonnes of rice and earned US$816 million, up 19.2 percent and 81 percent respectively. The average export price stood at US$487 per tonne, US$198/tonne higher than the same period last year. However, the situation on the world food market is very complicated. Domestic and foreign experts did not forecast a run-up in rice prices, which might be caused by declining exports.

Most leaders in the Mekong Delta provinces of Kien Giang, Long An, An Giang, Dong Thap and Tien Giang agreed with the Prime Minister’s proposal to raise the export volume to 4.5 million tones in 2008, instead of 4 million tonnes. This is thanks to abundant rice stocks in the region.

In order to deal with the rice already in stock and to buy rice at reasonable prices, the Ministry of Industry and Trade proposed that Prime Minister let businesses sign new export contracts. By the end of the third quarter, in case the country still has abundant supplies of rice, the ministry would ask the Prime Minister to allow the export of several hundreds of thousands of tonnes of rice as proposed by local authorities and the Vietnam Food Association.