HANOI: Vietnam has signed a contract to export 100,000 tonnes of rice to Malaysia with shipment now under way, traders said today, a significant deal after weeks of slow trade due to thin demand and low prices.

The contract with Malaysia is part of an unusually large volume of 1.5 million tonnes up for sale by Vietnamese exporters, part of an effort to boost domestic prices as farmers start producing their winter-spring crop, the largest of the season.

Ho Chi Minh City-based unlisted Vinafood 2, Vietnam’s largest rice exporter, sold the 5 per cent broken grain at US$460 a tonne cost and freight for loading between now and December, said a Vietnamese trader whose company is contributing to the shipment.

A Vinafood 2 trader confirmed the deal but declined to provide the contracted price.

Vinafood 2 paid its affiliates US$420 for each tonne of rice they contributed to the shipment, traders said.

“There are no large stocks of 5 per cent broken rice at this time of the year so the contract with Malaysia has boosted prices,” a trader with a foreign company said.

Vietnam’s 5 per cent broken rice price rose to US$395-US$400 a tonne this week, free-on-board, from US$380 last week, while the low-quality 25 per cent broken grain stood at US$310-US$315 a tonne, down from US$360-US$380 a tonne last Wednesday. - Reuters