From February 20, VFA will start buying rice for temporary storage.

On January 29, Mr. Truong Thanh Phong, Chairman of the Vietnam Food Association (VFA), said that the Prime Minister has agreed to the plan to temporarily purchase 1 million tons of rice for the 2012-2013 winter-spring crop, and the purchase is expected to begin on February 20, after the 2013 Lunar New Year holiday.

Illustration photo: Vietnam+

In this period, the amount of rice temporarily stored will be allocated to member enterprises to buy as in previous periods of temporary storage, but enterprises may not receive interest rate support. Previously, on January 28, to prepare for the implementation of temporary storage, the Ministry of Finance announced the planned production cost of rice and the purchase of rice in the Mekong Delta region for the 2012-2013 winter-spring crop, in which the average cost of this region was determined to be about 3,616 VND/kg. Regarding the purchase price, in the meeting in early January 2013, VFA directed enterprises to buy at market prices, but not less than 5,000 VND/kg of rice.

Currently, although VFA has not yet implemented the purchase of rice for temporary storage, Mr. Phong said that in the past 2 days, the purchase price of rice in the Mekong Delta provinces has increased slightly by 200 - 300 VND/kg thanks to the purchase of the Southern Food Corporation (Vinafood II).

Regarding exports, VFA said that in January, the country exported more than 300,000 tons of rice, with contracts signed by the end of the month reaching 1.1 million tons. If we count the contracts signed in 2012, which were transferred to 700,000 tons of rice, the number of signed rice export contracts to date has reached 1.8 million tons. According to VFA's assessment, the first months of the year are always a "quiet" time for export activities because export contracts will not be abundant again until April to meet the demand of the Malaysian and Chinese markets.../.

According to (Chinhphu.vn) - LT