The Ministry of Industry and Trade has urged Vietnamese rice exporters to promptly manage the volume of rice exports and stockpile, thus accelerating the signing of new contracts by the year-end.

The request was made in the context that the amount of rice exports through sub-border gates in northern provinces have been out of control.

Given this situation, the ministry has partnered with customs office and related agencies to inspect the cross-border export of rice.

The ministry has also coordinated with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the Vietnam Food Association and food companies to review the rice supply as well as signed rice export contracts. Then it will propose rice export scheme in the time to come.

In the first seven months of this year, Vietnam exported about 3.861 tonnes of rice, representing decreases of 7.9 percent in volume and 4.8 percent in value over the same period last year.

In June and July, rice exports dropped about 30 million USD each month compared with that in previous months.

To date this year, domestic rice exporters have signed contracts to sell 5.3 million tonnes of rice.

For the rest of the five months this year, domestic rice businesses will have to win contracts to export more than 1 million tonnes of rice to meet the 2014 export target of between 6.2 and 6.5 million tonnes of rice.-VNA