Vietnamese firms have won a bid to sell 350,000 tons of rice to the Philippines, local newspaper Vietnam Agriculture on Wednesday quoted the Vietnam Food Association as reporting.

The commodity, including 250,000 tons of 25-percent broken rice, is due for delivery by the end of May. Earlier, Vietnamese enterprises signed contracts on shipping abroad 600,000 tons of rice, mainly to the Philippines, the Middle East and Africa, in the first quarter of this year.

Vietnam has set targets of producing 38-39 million tons of paddy rice and selling overseas 4 to 4.2 million tons of rice this year, according to the Vietnamese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

Vietnam, which exported over 5.2 million tons of rice worth nearly 1.4 billion U.S. dollars in 2005, shipped abroad 200,000 tons of the product valued at 50 million U.S. dollars in January, posting year-on-year decreases of 19.5 percent and 21.6 percent.

Source: Xinhua