Vietnam shipped abroad over 5.7 million tonnes of rice for nearly 2.5 billion USD in the first ten months of this year, according to the Vietnam Food Association (VFA).

The export volume included more than 537,000 tonnes shipped in October, about 10,500 tonnes higher than the figure from the previous month.

The rice exports to Europe drastically increased by 161 percent against the same period last year, followed by America (nearly 26 percent) and China (14.8 percent).

The price of rice exported increased by around 30-40 USD per tonne last month whilst that of the five-percent broken rice climbed to 365-405 USD each tonne.

The surge is attributed to a rise in price of domestic rice exports due to the great volume of rice exported to China . However, the price stood firm at 390 USD per tonne at the end of last month.

The export volume is expected to reach one billion tonnes in the remaining months of this year, raising the total volume of Vietnam’s rice exports in 2013 to around 6.7 million tonnes.-VNA