Reports delivered at a conference in the Mekong Delta province of An Giang province on March 7 said the increase was attributable partly to an expansion of 58,256 ha in total rice area and partly to a rise of 454kg per ha in rice yield. Southern localities planted rice on a total area of 1.6 million ha during the crop. 

According to the Department of Crop Production under the Ministry of Agricultural and Rural Development (MARD), the region will accelerate restructuring of cultivation in the 2018 Summer-Autumn crop through apply comprehensively technical solutions, towards increasing quality, sustainable value. 

In the 2018 Summer-Autumn crop, the region will cultivate rice on a total area of 1.74 million ha, with an estimated yield of 9.77 million tonnes, up 277,000 tonnes on a yearly basis. 

In his speech at the conference, MARD Deputy Minister Le Quoc Doanh noted that regional farmers had a bumper harvest in the 2017-2018 Winter-Spring crop.

He asked localities in the region to devise measures to increase rice yield in the 2018 Summer-Autumn crop.

The southern region is the biggest rice production area in Vietnam. The country may export 6.5 million tonnes of rice in 2018, according to Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Ha Cong Tuan.

Last year, Vietnam earned 2.6 billion USD from exporting 5.8 million tonnes of rice.