Ben Tre's rice production in the first half of year

According to Ben Tre People’s Committee’s report of the first half of year, during the same period of time, the province finished harvesting the 2008 ten-month crop and 2008-2009 winter-spring crop of rice on a total area of 86,895 hectares and an output of 266,370 metric tonnes. At the moment, the 2009 summer-autumn crop has finished sowing on total area of 24,157 hectares, or 93.3% of the target area of 35,000 hectares. 90% of the rice breed to grow for commercial use fall into the followings: OM 3536, OM 2517, OM 4498, OM 4285, OM 6073, OM 6561, OM 6162, OM 5930, OM 4668, OM 4900, MTL 499.

At the moment, there are 3 private rice production enterprises and another one specialised in rice export. However, during the first half of year, most rice was exported indrectly through exporting businesses based in Ho Chi Minh City. In particular the rice export mostly through Vinafood II amounted to 7,237 metric tonnes and was worth totally US$3.039. But export has been faced with some difficulties since April. The problem is the world’s rice prices have been downed deeply due to the fact that some countries in the consuming world announced to open their own rice stock, generally pushing the supply far up while the overall demand falling. In the mean time, the minimum export rice price fixed by the Vietnamese Food Association was a bit higher than the world’s prices. That raised difficulties and made enterprises unable to find new export contracts. The province’s total rice inventory is currently running at 5,000 metric tonnes.

Translated by An Chau.