The sale comes in addition to a contract for 400,000 tons of rice for the Philippines that Vietnam won last week.

Officials at the Vietnam Southern Food Corp said Vietnam had won the tender at an auction Tuesday with a price of 664.90 dollars per ton for 25-per-cent broken white rice. Thailand, France, Germany and South Korea all lost out with bids of more than 700 dollars per ton.

On Wednesday, Nguyen Thanh Bien, the deputy industry and trade minister, told local media that Vietnam had exported 5.7 million tons of rice in the first 11 months of this year with revenues of 2.3 billion dollars.

Domestic rice prices in Vietnam have risen sharply on rumours of shortages. Unhusked rice has risen to 5,000 dong (0.28 dollars) per kilogram from 4,000 dong two weeks ago.

Bien said the domestic price was simply following rising world rice prices and said Vietnam would still have 1.45 million tons in stock at the end of the year.

In 2008, Vietnam exported 4.6 million tons of rice, earning $2.9 billion.

There was no official announcement yet from the National Food Authority in Manila about the award of the tender.

NFA, the Philippine government’s grains importing agency, has a budget of P18.525 billion ($401.58 million) for the tender of $669.30 a ton, on cost and freight basis. It said that a decision on the awards will be made within 10 working days.

During the tender, five firms offered to sell rice to the Philippines at $664.90- $772.88 a ton, at an import tender for 600,000 tons, only slightly higher than offers at a tender for a similar volume last week.

Deutsche Presse Agentur - December 16, 2009