Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Cambodia Rice Sales to Vietnam Ahead of Forecasts

Reuters

Hanoi, Aug 12 - Cambodia has sold more than 1 million tonnes of rice to neighbouring Vietnam in the first half of this year, beating Vietnamese industry forecasts for the whole of 2009, a Vietnamese newspaper reported.

The increased sales from Cambodia, plus a bumper summer-autumn crop, will help Vietnam reach a record export volume of 6 million tonnes this year, Vietnam Food Association Deputy Chairman Nguyen Tho Tri told the Saigon Economic Times newspaper.

The Industry and Trade Ministry has an even higher forecast of 7 million tonnes for Vietnam rice exports this year, from 4.65 million tonnes shipped in 2008.

"The rice volume poured in quickly, having exceeded 1 million tonnes at the end of June because many Cambodian firms switched sales to Vietnam from Thailand," Tri was quoted as saying in an interview published late on Tuesday by the newspaper, which is run by the Ho Chi Minh City Industry and Trade Department.

Cambodia's rice production increased to 7.2 million tonnes for the 2008/09 season from 6.7 million in 2007/08.

Tri said demand for rice remained strong because the United Nations had called on countries to give food aid to many African countries facing serious food shortages.

"If they join the aid, they would choose Vietnamese rice due to its cheap price," he said. But he added that the economic crisis had slowed aid flow to Africa.

Rice prices in Vietnam softened slightly this month as the summer-autumn harvest has been peaking, industry reports show.

Five-percent broken rice prices have eased to 6,700-6,800 dong (37.6-38.2 U.S. cents) per kg, free-on-board without packing, against 6,750-6,800 dong in the last week of July, the Vietnam Food Association said.

The association has ordered 21 members to start buying a combined 400,000 tonnes of husked rice from Monday at a price of at least 3,800 dong per kg of paddy to stop price falls while export demand is slow.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

There is a concern about the supply of rice in Cambodia in rest of the months before the coming harvesting season where the future is vague and the flood is approaching. While the remained tones of rice are going to sell to the Vietnamese.

Given this situation, it reminds me of one of the Khmer folktale "Rei (Singing grasschopper) & Sromoch (ant).

The government should play an important role to sustain the food security in Cambodia.

Anonymous said...

You know it real well that this so called Government is not for Cambodian people, but for Vn instead. When will this Government open their eye and look around.

Anonymous said...

cambodia has to be smarter here again, selling rice to youn, then youn turn it around and resell khmer rice to the rest of the world. and the rest of the world would then think youn is the number one rice exporter in the world when the fact is they bought most of their rice from cambodia or khmer rice. see, be careful with dirty youn trick. that's why khmer must be smarter because we are not in the dark age or stone ages anymore,ok! not why khmer rice sell directly to the world? what cambodia needs is an import/export factory to properly sack the rice with khmer and english writing or labelings, then export the khmer rice to the market in USA, japan, the EU, etc... this way the world will get to know khmer products and khmer rice and cambodia will have lots of jobs and money to buy lands, buy homes, etc..., and thus help the local economy and raise the good standard of living in cambodia. think about it, people. this is smart way. don't be so pessimistic in your outlook! think optimistically, you will become successful in everything you do! god bless cambodia.