Vietnamese firms have just won a bid to sell 474,000 tons of rice to the Philippines, according to a local trade agency on Wednesday.

The 25-percent broken rice, which has been priced, on average, at 308 U.S. dollars per ton, will be delivered from February to April, said the Trade Information Center under the Trade Ministry.

The Vietnamese government has recently decided that the rice export volume should be 4-4.5 million tons in 2007 to ensure food security.

Vietnam is expected to post paddy rice output of some 36 million tons, including 18.2 million tons coming from the southern Mekong Delta, this year. The country's current winter-spring rice crop is estimated to yield 8.8-9 million tons, lower than that in the previous crop due to the strike of pests and diseases, the Vietnam Food Association said.

Vietnam exported over 4.7 million tons of rice worth 1.3 billion dollars mainly to the Philippines, Malaysia and Cuba, last year.

Source: Xinhua