According to statistics provided by Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development's Agroinfo information centre, between late June and early July Vietnam exported 5 percent broken rice at $413 per tonne and 25 percent broken rice at $355 per tonne. But the price in August continued declining to the lowest level of 2009 of $392.94 and $340.39 per tonne. Meanwhile, Thailand's average rice export prices this month were $524.56 pert tonne and $432.06 per tonne.

Notably, the export output of Vietnam's high quality rice in this year early surged strongly but the average price still decreased compared with the same period of 2008. Particularly, in Jan-Jul, enterprises shipped 1.606 million tonnes of high quality rice, accounting for 39.09 percent of total export volume.

Ministry of Industry and Trade reported, rice export of first seven months of 2009 grew by 43 percent, pepper up 46.8 percent and coffee soaring 17 percent. However, due to the decreases in prices, the export value of agricultural products plunged 10 percent year-on-year, especially Vietnam's rice price fell 29 percent.

Tuoi Tre - September 1st, 2009