Vietnamese enterprises have won a bid in the Philippines to export nearly 400,000 tons of rice at higher prices to the country, according to local newspaper Youth on Thursday.

In the tender on Feb. 28, the Philippines called for rice supply of 550,000 tons, but the Vietnamese firms won the supply of only 398,000 tons because they placed bidding prices of 324 U.S. dollars per ton, some 16 dollars per ton higher than the prices in previous similar tenders.

Vietnam exported 316,000 tons of rice worth 100 million dollars to the world market, mainly to the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Cuba and Japan, in the first two months of this year, posting respective year-on-year declines of 47.8 percent and 39.9 percent.

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 exported over 4.7 million tons of rice worth 1.3 billion dollars last year, seeing respective decreases of 4.5 percent and 7.2 percent against the previous year, according to the country's General Statistics Office.

Source: Xinhua