The Ministry of Industry and Trade has just sent a document to the Prime Minister to propose the rice export management plan in May 2020 and in the coming time to both perform well the task of ensuring food security and maintaining production, as well the economic growth in line with the context of the COVID-19 epidemic in our country having been properly controlled.
According to the Ministry, based on the domestic and international context, as well as the goal of extending the rice export schedule to ensure national food security in the most difficult time and the latest date on the domestic rice supply and demand before the Summer-Autumn crop, the Ministry of Industry and Trade and other ministries and agencies have agreed to propose to the Prime Minister to allow the rice export activities to return to normal starting from 1st May 2020, continuing to comply with the provisions of the Government’s Decree No. 107/2018/ND-CP on 15th August 2018 of the Government on rice export.
Statistics of the Ministry show that the Winter-Spring crop in Northern and Northern Central regions has been stable and is being harvested smoothly, while the Winter-Spring crop in the South-Central Coast region and Central Highlands has basically finished and harvested.
According to a report of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development at the meeting on 22nd April 2020, the Winter-Spring crop in 2020 in the Mekong Delta region has officially achieved rice production as forecasted. The amount of rice that can be exported is about 3.2 million tons (including the "overlapping" rice from the previous year). The Summer-Autumn crop yields an estimated 11.0 million tons of paddy, to which the Mekong Delta contributes 8.7 million tons (so far, 0.75 million hectares have been sown).
It is expected that the amount of Summer-Autumn rice that can be exported is about 2.3 to 2.4 million tons. Thus, with the total amount of rice which can be exported of 3.2 million tons, after leaving out the amount of rice which is expected to be exported in the first 4 months of 2020, the remaining amount of rice which can be exported in the coming time from the beginning of May to the middle of June (at the time of the Summer-Fall crop) is around 1.3 million tons (excluding the amount of additional rice from early harvesting in some areas in the second half of May, which is expected to be about 100,000 ha).
Through the monitoring of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, within the past 5 years, with the clearance capacity of the current international ports/border gates, we have never exported 700 thousand tons of rice/month. Thus, even if the rice export reaches 700 thousand tons in May, we still have at least 600 thousand tons in the first half of June, before receiving the additional supply from the Summer-Fall crop.
This is a basic difference between the supply and demand of rice compared to the end of March 2020. "It can be affirmed that we have achieved the goal of extending rice export schedule to ensure absolute national food security in the most complicated period of COVID-19 epidemic," the Ministry of Industry and Trade emphasized. Besides proposing to export rice again from 1st May, the Ministry of Industry and Trade has also proposed to continue strictly implementing the export of rice only through international border gates (road, rail, sea, waterway, and aviation).
For rice exporting enterprises, it is necessary to strictly abide the provisions of Article 12 of Decree No. 107/2018 / ND-CP on regularly maintaining the minimum circulation reserve equivalent to 5% of the rice volume which traders have exported in the previous 6 months and pledged to immediately supply to the domestic market if required by the Government and to ask the 20 largest rice exporters to sign an agreement with at least 1 supermarket system on ensuring to provide the 5% circulation reserve when required.
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Source: https://vtc.vn/
