According to statistics from General Department of Customs, as of mid-September, Vietnam had exported nearly 6.5 million tonnes of rice of all kinds, earning 4.06 billion USD. Compared to the same period last year, rice exports increased slightly by 6% in volume but increased sharply by 21%. Main reason is that this year's rice export price increased sharply compared to the same period. Vietnam's rice import markets are still traditional markets such as Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and China. Recently, on (September 18), Indian Food Minister Sanjeev Chopra said that India is considering easing restrictions on the export of non-basmati rice in context of excess inventories and a sharp increase in rice cultivation area.
As the world's largest rice exporter, India has restricted export of some types of rice for more than a year to control domestic prices. Currently, basmati rice can only be exported above the floor price, while parboiled rice is subject to a 20% export tax and exports of non-basmati and broken rice are completely banned.
Last week, Indian government moved to remove floor price for basmati rice exports. Any effort to ease restrictions could help cool Asian rice prices, which hit a more than 15-year high in January and are still at record highs. That would be good news for some countries in West Africa and the Middle East that rely on imports from India.
In FY24, India exported a total of 15.7 MT of rice, comprising 2.36 MT of non-basmati rice, 545,000 MT of broken rice and 7.57 MT of parboiled rice, while a total of 21.8 MT of rice was exported in FY23. India is the second largest rice producer after China and the largest exporter globally, contributing at least 40% to global trade before export curbs were imposed.
According to S&P Global Commodity Insights, India's rice production is expected to reach a record high of 135.5-138 million tonnes in 2024-25 (July 2024-June 2025) due to return of La Nina weather conditions.
According to data released by Thai Ministry of Commerce on September 18, the Southeast Asian country exported 5.68 million tonnes of rice in period from January to July, with a total value of 132.4 billion baht (about 3.7 billion USD), up 50.97% over the same period last year.
Thai Ministry of Commerce forecast that Thailand's rice exports could exceed expected target of 8.2 million tonnes this year, partly due to India's export restrictions, which have tightened global rice supplies.
Mr. Do Ha Nam - Vice President of Vietnam Food Association - said that it is not easy to make an assessment of rice export prices from now until the end of the year. However, trend of rice export prices decreasing from now until end of the year is difficult. Mr. Nam said that amount of rice left for export from now until the end of the year is not much. Meanwhile, the Philippines is expected to import about 1 million tonnes of rice from Vietnam.
To support rice exports, Import-Export Department (Ministry of Industry and Trade) said that it has been implementing trade activities, promoting Vietnamese rice products and brands and trade promotion activities to effectively exploit the advantages of free trade agreements.

Source: Vitic/ congthuong.vn