Cambodia Rice News: World Rice News: Vietnamese rice prices move higher on intervention, Thai prices slip

Vietnamese rice prices move higher on intervention, Thai prices slip

Vietnamese rice prices edged higher this week, despite a rise in supply, supported by a government stockpiling plan, while Thai rice prices slipped because of thin demand, traders said on Wednesday.

Vietnamese exporters started buying summer-autumn paddy this week under an industry stockpiling scheme, but the export market remained largely lifeless, traders said.

Traders said export prices could rise next month if new demand emerges from key buyers such as the Philippines and Indonesia, but so far Vietnam has failed to fend off competition from cheaper grain from Myanmar and India, where offer prices have ranged from $350 to $430 per tonne.

"Prices have started edging up in the past few days, which has also caused a slight change in export prices," said a trader in Ho Chi Minh City.

The 25 percent broken rice was quoted at $375-$380 per tonne, free on board Saigon Port, up from $370-$375 per tonne last week. The 5 percent broken grain was unchanged at $410-$415 per tonne.

Prices for a kilogram of summer-autumn paddy, used mostly for processing lower quality grades including 15 and 25 percent broken rice, gained 100-150 dong, or about 1 US cent, in the Mekong Delta area.

Vietnam's government has allowed rice exporters to use interest-free loans to buy 500,000 tonnes of milled rice, or 1 million tonnes of paddy, until August 10 and to keep the stock until October 10 to help boost domestic prices during the harvest peak this month.

However, traders said the purchase volume was quite small compared with the 8.9 million tonnes of paddy expected from the Delta's harvest.

Rice prices in Thailand slipped as local millers offered to sell at slightly lower prices to encourage exporters to start buying again.

Millers offered to sell at 17,400 baht ($550) per tonne for premium grade white rice, down from last week's 18,000 baht.

Some millers, who have rice but can no longer sell it on to the government because the government intervention scheme has expired for now, needed to offload at cheaper prices to improve their liquidity. As a result, export-grade 100 percent B grade Thai white rice eased to $590 per tonne, down from last week's $600 per tonne, exporters said.

"That didn't really help as exporters have no orders. So no one wants to buy at this point," said a Bangkok-based trader.

However, traders said Thai rice prices were unlikely to fall sharply over the next few weeks even though the government intervention scheme expired at the end of June as the scheme is almost certain to be renewed, probably from August.

"The government has drained all of the grain into its stocks and left nothing for us to sell. There is no trade in Thai rice. Prices are just pegged at high levels, with no trade," said Charoen Laothamatas at rice exporter Uthai Produce Co Ltd.

Last week the Thai government said it had sold 240,000 tonnes of rice from its stocks to Ivory Coast. However, traders noted that it represented only 3 percent of record high stocks of about 8 million tonnes of milled rice, so the deal had a limited impact on Thai prices.

Source: Brecorder/15July2012

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