Exports eat away nation’s rice stocks

The prospect was raised at last week’s monthly meeting between Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) officials and representatives of other ministries, state corporations and localities organised under a guideline from the Prime Minister.
Latest figures from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) showed that in the first 11 months of the year Vietnam exported 5.1 million tonnes of rice, the highest-ever volume exported, earning the country $1.7 billion.
“Given the bad weather conditions, we proposed to export only 4.7 million tonnes of rice,” said Trang Hieu Dung, director of MARD’s Department of Planning. “It is really a matter of supply-demand imbalance.”
However, Nguyen Ngoc Phuc, MPI vice minister who chaired the meeting, noted the export figure might not be completely accurate as the volume of rice exported during the last month of the year has not yet been taken into account.
“MARD and the Ministry of Trade should coordinate to better check the figures,” he said. He added that there was a strong possibility the poor climate of the past few months - drought early in the summer-autumn crop in South Vietnam and destructive storms numbered 2, 6, 7 and 8 in Central and North Vietnam - would put many regions in the country at food shortage.
Meanwhile, good news came concerning the export of fisheries. MPI statistics estimated that for the past 11 months the total export value of fisheries had been $2.5 billion, 99 per cent of a planned goal and 11.7 per cent higher than during the same period last year.
While the avian flu has broken out in 17 provinces and cities across the country, causing much hardship to the poultry sector, it has presented an opportunity for fishery export.
Last week, the Ministry of Trade’s Department of Europe reported that orders from the EU for Vietnamese fisheries have risen remarkably since early October. Many Vietnamese fishery exporters have been unable to meet that demand.
The reason for the growth is that avian flu has led consumer demand in the EU for “winged” animal products has fallen about 10-15 per cent and seafood has become an alternative. The New Year and Christmas holidays also provide a chance for big orders.