Vietnam to ship 100,000 tons of rice to Bangladesh

Vinafood 2, Vietnam’s major rice exporter, said it has signed a contract to sell 100,000 tons of medium-grade 15 percent broken rice to Bangladesh.

The Ho Chi Minh City-based company, also known as Vietnam Southern Food Corporation, will provide the grain at US$389 per ton. 

The company described the South Asian country as a burgeoning market. Bangladesh recently imported 178,000 tons of rice from Vietnam and plans to buy another 200,000 tons. Vietnam is now the most competitive rice supplier for Bangladesh, the company said.

However, it noted that some competitive Vietnamese exporters are beggining to undercut each other. The tactics have led the national food association to caution its members against predatory pricing.

Vinafood 2, the industry giant, has asked the government to give it the right to oversee the whole Bangladeshi market. If the government agrees, Vinafood 2 will have final approval over all export contracts to the country and will be responsible for assigning contracts to other exporters.

Vietnam is set to meet this year’s rice export target of 6 million tons, Nguyen Thanh Bien, deputy minister of industry and trade, said this week.

Vietnam's rice exports rank second only to Thailand. The nation has shipped more than 4 million tons, valued at around $2 billion so far this year, according to official figures.