Vietnamese firms have recently won a bid to sell 14,000 tons of rice to Japan, according to a local trade agency on Wednesday.

The commodity has been priced, on average, at 562 U.S. dollars per ton, said the Trade Information Center under the Trade Ministry.

Local companies have so far this year inked contracts on supplying a total of 116,078 tons of rice to Japan, up from 79,024 tons in 2005, said the center.

The country, which sold overseas nearly 4.4 million tons of rice valued at roughly 1.2 billion dollars in the first 10 months of this year, has decided to export 5 million tons of rice at most this year, a move to ensure its food security, said the center.

Vietnam shipped abroad more than 5.2 million tons of rice worth nearly 1.4 billion dollars in 2005.

Source: Xinhua