According to the announcements of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development as well as the Ministry of Industry and Planning yesterday, the figures related to rice harvesting and exporting activities in the first two quarters of this year were truly encouraging for rice farmers.
Vietnam harvested crops on its 3.48 million ha of paddy fields, a growth of 0.5 percent compared to this time last year.
The average rice yield reached 67.1 tonnes per hectare, an increase of 0.7 tonnes per hectare, while the total rice output on the harvested area was 23.3 million tonnes, up 1.6 percent year to year.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development informed that in the first half of the year, Vietnam exported 4.68 million tonnes of rice of various kinds, earning US$2.98 billion. Compared to the same period in 2023, rice exports increased by only 10.4 percent in volume but surged by 32 percent in value due to high export prices for rice.
However, at the same time, Vietnam spent also about $670 million to purchase rice in this first half of 2024. In 2023, Vietnam paid nearly US$860 million to import rice from other countries, mainly Cambodia and India.
Despite being the world's second-largest rice exporter, Vietnamese businesses still import some types of rice for the production and processing of animal feed.
