Vietnam to sell 175,000 tons of rice to Philippines

Vietnamese rice firms on July 25 secured deals to sell 175,000 tons of 25% broken rice to the Philippines, having won an international competitive tender to supply 250,000 tons of rice for the Philippines.

Huynh The Nang, chairman of the Vietnam Food Association (VFA), said the companies that won the tender are Vietnam Southern Food Corporation (Vinafood 2), Gia International Corporation and Tan Long Group JSC with 50,000 tons each, and Hiep Loi Food JSC with 25,000 tons.

Olam International Limited from Singapore won 50,000 tons and Capital Cereal Co Ltd won the remaining 25,000 tons.

Nang did not reveal the prices offered by the Vietnamese enterprises.

Early this month, the Philippines’ National Food Authority (NFA) announced its plan to import 250,000 tons of rice under government-to-private (G2P) contracts, instead of government-to-government (G2G) ones as before. The Philippines wants to import more rice to replenish its stocks.

VFA said there were 20 eligible enterprises participating in the bidding, eight of them from Vietnam and the rest from Thailand, Singapore and Myanmar.

The 250,000 tons is divided into eight lots, with two of them having 50,000 tons each and the remaining six 25,000 tons.

Tender winners will have to ship 120,000 tons of rice to the Philippines in August and the remaining 130,000 tons in September.

IR 50404 material rice sells for VND7,200-7,250 a kilo and fresh IR 50404 rice VND4,700-4,800 a kilo.

According to VFA, Vietnam exported more than 1.1 million tons of rice to the Philippines in 2015, accounting for 17.2% of the total. The volume plunged to 400,000 tons in 2016.

According to data of the General Department of Vietnam Customs, Vietnam shipped 2.87 tons of rice to other countries worth US$1.28 billion in the first half of 2017, up 8.2% in volume and 8.7% in value year-on-year. The Philippines was the second largest importer of Vietnamese rice after China, with over 267,600 tons worth US$103.8 million, up 38.4% in volume and 26% in revenue against the year-ago period.