Major rice exporters Vietnam and India on Friday said they will curb overseas sales more in an effort to combat food inflation, threatening to heighten the world's anxiety over staple food supplies.
Hanoi confirmed it will cut rice exports by 22 percent this year from last. India raised the minimum sale price for rice exports by more than 50 percent, effectively ending overseas sales of all but the highest quality grades.
These are the latest measures by governments from Manila to Cairo to ensure sufficient supplies for their expanding populations at a time when global stockpiles have halved and prices have doubled to multi-year highs.
While consumer nations like the Phillippines fret over food security, big producers are aiming to tame inflation by keeping more supplies at home to drive down domestic prices.
In Vietnam, consumer prices rose by nearly 20 percent in March, the highest in more than 12 years, while India's wholesale price inflation has surged to a near-14 month high, posing a major policy challenge at a time when economic growth is slowing.
Vietnam, the world's second-biggest exporter, will limit rice shipments to 3.5 million tonnes, down from 4.5 million last year, in order to stabilise prices, a government statement quoted Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung as saying, after Hanoi imposed a limit for the first 10-month shipment last week.
"Vietnam will save 1 million tonnes of rice for northern provinces and will see prices easing following this cut," said a rice trader at a foreign firm in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam's largest grain trading market.
SUPPLY CONCERNS MOUNT
India, which could overtake Vietnam this year, has raised the minimum export price for non-basmati rice to $1,000 per tonne from $650 to protect domestic supplies. It also scrapped tax incentives for exporters of non-Basmati rice to try and tame price pressures in Asia's third-largest economy.
"The government's move is aimed at a complete halt of non-basmati rice exports," said Prem Garg, managing director of Lal Mahal Group, a leading rice exporter.
Trade officials believe India will be able to export 5.5 million tonnes of rice in the year to March 31, 2008, up from 3.8 million tonnes in the previous year, but added the new restrictions could cut sales in coming months.
"The government is concerned about domestic supplies," said Vijay Sethia, president of the All India Rice Exporters' Association. "There is no shortage of rice in India, but any scarcity in global markets will lead to higher exports."
Nearly half the planet's 6.6 billion people depend on rice to survive but rising populations and economic growth mean that the world is already eating more of the grain than is harvested.
World rice inventories now stand at about 72 million tonnes, their lowest since the mid-1970s and enough to cover about 17 percent of global annual consumption, data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture show. Just eight years ago stockpiles were equal to 35 percent of demand.
Vietnam exported 859,000 tonnes of rice in the first three months of this year, up 5.3 percent from a year earlier, government figures show.
The price for cargoes of Thai medium-grade 15 percent broken rice, a benchmark for a market that does not have an active global futures contract, more than doubled to $735 a tonne free-on board Bangkok on Thursday, from $360 at the end of 2007.
Vietnam rice prices are up 26 percent so far this year.
Egypt said earlier this week it will ban rice exports from April 1 to October to hold down local prices. The Philippines aims to import up to 2.2 million tonnes this year in what could be the biggest overseas purchase in a decade.
No comments:
Post a Comment