Hanoi (VNA) – The agriculture sector and traders have expressed their highoptimism about rice exports this year given high prices and stable markets,helping the grain remain a big foreign currency earner.

Rice exportsin 2024 could stay high thanks to such markets as the Philippines, Indonesia,Africa, and Ghana. In particular, Indonesia is a relatively potential marketwhen its State Logistics Agency (Bulog) recently announced that it has beenassigned by the Indonesian Government to import 2 million tonnes of rice this year,Chairman of the GLE Company Vu Tuan Anh told the Lao dong (Labour) daily.

Vietnam was among the largest riceexporters to Indonesia and is expected to maintain this status in 2024, henoted.

Last year, India,the world’s biggest rice exporter, suddenly banned the export of non-basmatiwhite rice. Despite this unexpected move and no time for preparation, Vietnamstill managed to ship abroad about 8.29 million tonnes of rice worth 4.78 billion USDin 2023, up 16.7% in volume and 38.4% in value year on year, setting newrecords in more than 30 years since the country began exporting rice.

In 2024, Vietnam is in a moreproactive position as it can grasp global demand and domestic output, so thereare more favourbale conditions for the export, Anh continued.

Particularly,export prices are still high, which will be a contribution to export growth, hesaid, perceiving that if India prolongs its export ban, Vietnam could earn over5 billion USD from overseas shipments of rice this year.

Pham ThaiBinh, Director of the Trung An Hi-Tech Farming JSC, said right at the start of2024, his company received six orders for 1,500 tonnes of rice for the EU, theUK, Malaysia, the UAE, and Australia. FOB (free on board) prices, which are pricesat Vietnam’s border gates, range from 718 USD per tonne to 1,277 EUR (nearly1,390 USD) per tonne.

He voiced his belief that rice exports will be equivalent to last year’s in terms of volume but about 15 - 20% higherin value thanks to high prices.

Echoing theview, the Vietnam Food Association (VFA) held that rice exports will continuebenefiting from a favourable context in 2024 as the world is facing a shortageof 5 million tonnes, such importers as Indonesia and the Philippines still havedemand for imported rice, and India is likely to maintain export restrictionsin the coming time.

Given this, rice shipments couldbring home about 5.3 billion USD this year, the VFA forecast./.