HANOI, Aug 3 (Reuters) – Vietnam plans to stockpile rice bought from home farmers in a bid to assist growers affected by strict coronavirus motion curbs and low export costs offload their harvest, state media reported on Tuesday.
The transfer, which is topic to approval by Vietnam’s prime minister, ought to encourage farmers to proceed rice manufacturing into the subsequent harvest, the official Vietnam Information Company (VNA) reported, citing deputy agriculture minister Tran Thanh Nam.
Nam didn’t say how a lot rice the federal government deliberate to purchase for the non permanent stockpiling. Paddy output from the continuing summer-autumn harvest is forecast to be 9.04 million tonnes, up 1.35% from final 12 months.
“Farmers are discovering it onerous to promote their newly harvested rice as a result of many exporters and center merchants are unable to make their purchases because of the coronavirus motion curbs,” a dealer based mostly in Ho Chi Minh Metropolis mentioned.
Merchants mentioned low export rice costs had additionally discouraged them to signal new export contracts.
A number of provinces in southern Vietnam, together with within the Mekong Delta rice bowl, have since final month imposed strict actions to sort out the nation’s worst COVID-19 outbreak but.
The present wave has led to over 160,000 infections and 1,800 deaths because it started in late April.
Vietnam’s 5% damaged rice RI-VNBKN5-P1 costs slipped to $390 per tonne final Thursday – their lowest since February 2020 – from a variety of $395-$400 every week earlier.
The nation’s rice shipments within the first seven months of this 12 months had been estimated to have dropped 10.6% from a 12 months earlier to three.6 million tonnes.
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