Rice exports in early 2024 are forecast to be positive

At the Workshop "Global Rice Market And Trends", Mr. Le Thanh Hoa, Deputy Director of the Department of Processing Quality and Market Development, said that the cultivated area in 2023 is estimated at 7.1 million hectares, productivity is estimated at 60.8 tons/ha, the output is estimated at 43.1 million tons, an increase of 420 thousand tons compared to 2022.

One of the highlights is that the proportion of fragrant and specialty varieties currently accounts for the majority.

Specifically, the Dai Thom 8/OM18 variety currently accounts for 41%, the OM5451 variety accounts for about 19%, and the ST variety (21/24/25) accounts for about 9%. This is maintained throughout the growing seasons, from winter-spring to summer-autumn.

Regarding market issues, Vietnam's number one market continues to be the Philippines, accounting for about 35% of Vietnam's rice export market share. In the first 11 months of 2023, the amount of rice exported to this country reached 2.63 million tons, equivalent to US$ 1.41 billion. Following are Indonesia, China, and African countries.

According to Mr. Hoa, Vietnam's main export rice product is grain rice, accounting for more than 60% of the structure and reaching more than US$ 2.3 billion in value.

Mr. Hoa commented that Vietnam's export rice prices will be relatively complicated starting in 2021. At the beginning of 2021, rice prices reached US$ 550/ton, but by mid-2022, this number dropped to nearly US$ 460/ton, then increased dramatically in 2023. The highest price was recorded in October 2023, reaching US$ 640/ton. In particular, some businesses can get agreements close to the US$ 800/ton threshold.

Vietnamese rice is increasingly gaining brand recognition on the world map, according to Mr. Le Thanh Hoa. Analyzing the situation in the coming time, leaders of the Department of Processing Quality and Market Development said that global rice production could reach a record of nearly 520 million tons, while consumption will also get 525 million tons.

Due to the decrease in global stock to just over 160 million tons, Mr. Hoa emphasized: "This is a great opportunity for Vietnam's rice industry."

Going deeper into this aspect, Mr. Hoa said the import demand of countries will fluctuate. Some countries will decrease, such as Brazil, Egypt, Ghana... but some countries, including Vietnam's major trading partner - Indonesia - are forecast to increase by about 600,000 tons.

In addition, in 2023, the Philippines - another important partner of Vietnam - imported more than 2.8 million tons of rice, of which 90% of the volume was imported from Vietnam and 4.5% from Thailand, reached 126,560 tons, 4.3% from Myanmar reached 120,538 tons, the rest came from Pakistan, India, Cambodia.

Clearly identifying the trend of transforming sustainable production, green development, and green consumption of the rice market, Mr. Le Thanh Hoa recommends that businesses focus on quality issues instead of being too concerned about productivity and output as before.

"The standard requirements of the import market are increasingly high. Countries are increasingly raising technical measures and barriers to limit and control imports from foreign countries," Mr. Hoa shared at the conference.

Besides the seed stage, the representative of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development proposed improving science and technology development, as well as scientific and technological advances to help mechanize, automate, and liberate labor.

The four solutions mentioned by Mr. Hoa include reorganizing production towards chain linkage, forming specialized farming areas, large-scale raw material areas, and logistics centers, organizing production towards safety and sustainability, standardization of varieties, enhancing deep farm processing, promoting logistics to develop domestic and export rice markets with appropriate and key seed structures according to the rice export strategy (special rice products, fragrant rice, high-quality rice...).

Forecasting the market at the end of the year and the first half of 2024, Mr. Le Thanh Hoa said that the situation will continue to be favorable. Therefore, he proposed to continue restructuring the rice industry towards improving quality and value, ensuring an increase in value rather than an increase in quantity.

Businesses, cooperatives, and people promote cooperation in high-quality rice production, restructuring and exporting rice types to diversify export markets, per Vietnam's Rice Export Market Development Strategy until 2030.

Through a series of international rice festival events held in Hau Giang, Mr. Le Thanh Hoa also requested the Ministry of Industry and Trade to focus on researching and sharing market information, assess and forecast long-term needs and tastes, Prioritize trade promotion resources, trade connections, and product promotion to promote exports.

Along with that, he asked the State Bank to ensure preferential credit sources for export businesses, helping link chains to be sustainable.