HANOI (Commodity Online) : Vietnam, one of the world's leading rice exporters, said there would be no rice shortage for export this year. According to country's agriculture ministry, strong foreign demand has pushed up reference prices of export-standard rice by $50 per tonne. The ministry said there is still one million tonnes of rice in stock. Furthermore, the commercial rice volume will increase in the upcoming harvest.

 "In the coming harvest, the country expects to have an additional 3.5 million tonnes of rice, including 1.5 million tonnes of commercial rice. We will weigh the situation to decide the amount for export till the end of this year," it said.

However, the ministry declined to comment on some predictions that the rice export volume this year could jump to a record high of seven million tonnes despite the ample inventory.

In June, the Vietnam Food Association suggested to raise the export target by half a million tonnes to 6.5 million tonnes of rice.

The total rice export in the January-August period amounted to 4.8 million tonnes valued at more than $ 2 billion. Currently, rice exporters are increasing purchases from farmers owing to strong foreign demand.

In August, VFA raised the reference price three times by $50 per tonne. For the 5 percent-broken rice, the guiding price is at $450, while that for 25 percent-broken rice is $410 per tonne. However, the number of rice exporters signing contracts at these prices is insignificant.