Speculators have been selling rice to Thailand via Cambodia for over a month despite domestic prices rising VND1,000/kg.
Traders sell rice to Thailand via border trade
At the meeting of Vietnam Food Association (VFA) on September 7 in HCM City, Director of An Giang Export Company Nguyen Van Tien said the amount of rice in provinces near the south-west border are ready to be transferred to Cambodia has reached 400,000 tonnes in the last month.
At My Thoi Port in An Giang Province, 570,000 tonnes of rice has been recorded, of which only 100,000 tonnes has been officially traded.
"Although the summer-autumn crop has ended, they’re still trying to collect rice for sale to Thailand." Tien said.
VFA President Truong Thanh Phong said the rice would be transported to Thailand via Cambodia. Up to 5,000 tonnes of rice per day is currently being traded across the border via An Giang Province. In northern provinces, Chinese traders are buying rice straight from the farms.
According to Phong, Vietnam’s rice export figures are looking good. In July and August, enterprises have signed contracts for 1.7 million tonnes of rice. Africa nations have also signed deals to accept 1.6 million tonnes of the grain. In the near future, Indonesia, Philippines and China will buy more rice from Vietnam as their domestic prices are too high.
Severe droughts have lowered US and Russian food outputs and limited exports from two countries. Moreover, Russia has also considered limiting the export of other food products.
Phong said Thailand’s rice inventory currently stands at 11 million tonnes. Thailand was hoping to sell three million tonnes of rice but in fact only 230,000 tonnes has been sold due to its high price. India’s inventory has also reached 28 million tonnes that needs to be sold by the next crop.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development said Vietnam will be able to export 8.3 million tonnes in 2012 including 7.2 million tonnes of the 2012 crop and 1.1 million tonnes from stockpiles.
However, VFA said due to the rise of global prices and limited domestic sources, people have been hoarding rice. Rice mills still have full stockpiles and traders are exploiting this opportunity to hoard rice. Some firms from construction and marine industry have also jumped into the rice market to speculate, causing trouble for export companies.
