Vietnam has decided to cease signing rice export contracts until next year, to ensure domestic food security, local newspaper Saigon Liberation reported Tuesday.
Vietnam is expected to produce 35.5 million tons of paddy rice in 2007, while 28.5 million tons are expected to be set aside for domestic demand, and 7 million tons, equivalent to 4 million tons of rice, for export, the paper quoted Vietnamese Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Diep Kinh Tan as saying.
The country, which now has 1 million tons of rice in inventory, has so far this year inked contracts of shipping abroad some 4 million tons of rice, he said.
Vietnam, the world's second largest rice exporter, sold overseas nearly 3.6 million tons of rice worth roughly 1.2 billion U.S. dollars in the first eight months of this year, down 4.8 percent in volume, but up 12.2 percent in value over the same period last year.
It shipped over 4.7 million tons of rice worth 1.3 billion dollars last year to nearly 100 markets, with the exports to the Philippines, Malaysia and Cuba accounting for some 60 percent of the total.
Source: Xinhua
|
Comment
Tell A Friend
Print Format
Save Article