Vietnam threatens our national interests

Tuesday, 21 April 2009
Written by Naranhkiri Tith
Letter to The Phnom Penh Post

Dear Editor,

I read with alarm the article "Vietnam aims to lease land for rice crops" (February 26, 2009), in which it was stated that Vietnam is planning to lease land from the Cambodian government in the provinces contiguous with Vietnam in order to plant rice for the purpose of combating alleged rice smuggling from Cambodia. This is a dangerous project [that is] very detrimental to Cambodian national interests for a number of reasons.

First, Vietnam has been encroaching on Cambodia's land since the 17th century under a scheme known as nam tien, or "southward march", and annexing the land that they occupied and populating it with former soldiers and ex-convicts, as well as claiming land that used to belong to Cambodia, such as the region known as Kampuchea Krom.

Second, there are many Cambodians mired in abject poverty who rely on land for their survival.

Third, as pointed out in your article "The time of reckoning for Khmer Krom" (February 22), Vietnam has been committing atrocities against the Khmer Krom with help from the Hun Sen regime. This, in turn, shows that Vietnam has not been a defender of Cambodian national interests.

VN encourages Viet companies to lease land, grow rice in Cambodia, and export it to VN

Farmers, wearing conical hats, place rice grain into sacks at Co Do farm in Can Tho Province

Vietnam to halt rice exports until July as sales exceed target

Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Thanh Nien News (Hanoi)

Vietnam, the world’s second-biggest rice shipper, will not sign export contracts for delivery until June, after shipments in the first half of the year beat the target, according to the Vietnam Food Association.

The association will only register contracts for delivery between July and September, according to a statement on its website. Export volumes for the first half were not provided.

“We don’t want to be in a situation where we export too much in the first half and not have enough rice for contracts after that,” Huynh Minh Hue, the association’s acting general secretary, said by telephone from Ho Chi Minh City. “It is important to balance shipments throughout the year.”

Vietnam plans to raise rice exports in 2009 by 6.4 percent to five million tons as favorable weather aids the nation’s largest harvest of the year and adequate reserves enable increased sales, Deputy Minister of Agriculture Diep Kinh Tan said on February 11.

More than five million tons of rice will be harvested this month and in March in half of the 1.8 million hectares (4.44 million acres) of paddy fields in the Mekong Delta, agriculture minister Cao Duc Phat said on February 10.

The country also plans to lease land to grow rice in Cambodia to counter smuggling of the grain across the border, Tuoi Tre newspaper reported, citing a report by Doan Ngoc Pha, deputy director of the Agriculture and Rural Development Department of An Giang Province.

Vietnamese companies will be encouraged to lease land in Cambodia and will be allowed to export rice to Vietnam, he said in the report.

Smugglers bring in hundreds of metric tons of rice each day from Cambodia, the newspaper reported without giving details.