Expected rice demand from nations hit by adverse weather could stem a forecasted fall in Vietnamese rice exports of as much as 41 percent in the first quarter of 2010, industry officials and media reports said on Friday.
Traders see as much as 2.05 million tons of potential demand, including 800,000 tons for the Philippines, the world's top rice importer.
Manila would buy 600,000 tons in late March, and Vietnam will prepare to fill in the remaining 200,000 tons, Vietnam Food Association Deputy Chairman Pham Van Bay was quoted by the Agriculture Ministry-run Nong Nghiep Vietnam newspaper as saying.
"If Vietnam can sell to the Philippines, prices will rise because all the domestic market needs is just a rising number of vessels arriving for loading," a trader in Ho Chi Minh City said.
Separately, Indonesia may buy 1 million tons and Iraq is seeking 250,000 tons via a tender and Vinafood 1, the country's second largest rice exporter, would bid for 125,000 tons, the official Vietnam Economic Times newspaper said on Friday.
The demand of 2.05 million tons represents about a fifth of a combined 9 million tons in stockpile that the world's top rice exporters Thailand and Vietnam planned to build.
Thailand's rice stocks could grow to 8 million tons from 6 million tons on a plan announced Thursday while Vietnam may store 1 million tons, with purchases taking place in March and April, traders said.
Q1 rice exports down
Vietnam's rice exports in January and February fell 24.9 percent from a year ago to an estimated 781,000 tons, and revenues also dropped 6.8 percent to $437 million, the government said on Friday.
Rice exports in the first quarter are forecast to fall by between 33-41 percent to 1.15-1.2 million tons, state media said on Friday.
The forecast underlines a sluggish market as both foreign buyers and Vietnamese exporters, who have been allocated shipments for the Philippines at high prices, are waiting for further price falls at the peak of a major harvest, traders said.
They said the average price awarded to Vietnam via Manila's tenders were $500 a ton, or 9,500 dong (50.5 U.S. cents) per kg, while domestic prices for the 25 percent broken rice have fallen 34 percent so far this year to 5,500 dong per kg.
Africa also has demand for Vietnamese rice but several trading firms that dominate the African market were waiting for the winter-spring crop in Vietnam to peak so they could pressure on prices, Bay told the Agriculture Ministry-run newspaper.
He said Vietnam maintained its policy not to lower prices.
The association forecast March's rice loading to rise to between 450,000 tons and 500,000 tons, the official Thanh Nien newspaper reported. Vietnam shipped 1.78 million tons of rice in the first quarter of 2009, government statistics show.
The association said on Thursday it kept unchanged the floor for 5 percent broken rice price at $440 a ton. It has assigned 30 rice companies to stockpile 600,000 tons in March and 400,000 tons in April, the ruling Communist Party-run Nhan Dan newspaper reported.
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