Domestic economists have urged tighter monitoring of rice export price to help farmers and exporters avoid damages in the face of strong fluctuations in world rice price.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade forecast a rise in rice price in Asia in September as the Philippines is expected to sign more contracts to purchase around 500,000 tonnes of rice, mostly from Vietnam, from now to the year’s end.

However, according to analysts, the price of rice will depend much on moves of Thailand as the top rice exporter has a plan to sell its stockpile of up to seven million tonnes of rice in the coming time.

At present, the world’s rice price is on a downward trend as a result of bumper rice harvest in some major export countries such as Vietnam, Thailand and Pakistan while large importers have almost filled up their storage. Thai rice prices are also dropping considerably.

The domestic rice price is in the same boat although it has risen slightly as compared with last week’s figure.

The Vietnam Food Association (VFA) is expected to convene its members on September 7 to work out a plan to purchase rice from farmers as well as regulate the country’s rice export.

VFA’s statistics showed that Vietnam had by the end of August raked in over 2 billion USD from exporting over 4.4 million tonnes of rice, up 6.3 percent in value and 42 percent in volume in comparison with the figures of last year’s same period.

Asia has remained Vietnam’s main rice importer, buying 62 percent of the country’s total rice export earnings. It is followed by Africa with over 17 percent and America, 15 percent.

VFA Vice Chairman Nguyen Tho Tri revealed that domestic exporters had by the end of August signed contracts to export over 5.6 million tonnes of rice, up nearly 67 percent from a year ago./.