Vietnam earns 2.2 billion USD from rice export this year

Illustrative image (Source: VNA)

Hanoi (VNA) –Vietnam exported an estimated 4.88 million tonnes of rice this year, earning2.2 billion USD, down 25.8 percent in volume and 21.2 percent in valueyear-on-year, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

In December alone, 399,000 tonnesof rice worth 181 million USD were shipped abroad.

China remains the largest riceimporter of Vietnam with a market share of 35.9 percent. In the past 11 months,Vietnam shipped 1.61 million tonnes worth 722.2 million USD to the country,down 20.5 percent in volume and 11.7 percent in value from 2015.

Ghana is Vietnam’s second largestrice importer with an 11.1 percent market share.

Markets with strong drops inVietnamese rice imports are the Philippines (down 65 percent), Malaysia (48percent), the US (33 percent), Singapore (30.7 percent), Indonesia (22percent), the Ivory Coast (21.5 percent), and Hong Kong (19 percent).

The falling rice export is attributableto prolonging El Nino phenomenon in the central and Central Highlands, salineintrusion in the Mekong Delta, and flooding in the north, the central and theCentral Highlands.

Rice production this year decreasedin both cultivation area and output, particularly in the south.

The total rice output isestimated at 43.6 million tonnes, down 3.3 percent from last year.-VNA

VNA