Thoi Bao Tai Chinh Vietnam (Vietnam Financial Times) reported that Hanoi had issued a document on Thursday which aimed to regulate and encourage rice exports during the remainder of the year. The paper reported that the government hoped to concentrate on selling rice in the period to its main buyers in Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia.

Exporters are now permitted to stockpile a combined maximum of 400,000 tonnes of export rice in the period, which included current stocks of 200,000 tonnes. The Finance Ministry through a special fund would support rice exporters with bank interest payments for firms stockpiling the staple, the paper said.

The document also directed the central bank to instruct commercial banks to offer prolonged interest repaymentperiod for farmers in some areas where rice has recently been harvested. The document said Vietnam would seek to sell rice to Iraq via a third country. The paper did not elaborate on how the deal to Iraq would be structured.

Vietnam would also offer to export 300,000 tonnes of rice on terms of one-year deferred payment, the paper said. Hanoi has revised its 1999 rice export target to 4.3 million tonnes from 3.9 million tonnes, but traders and rice exporters have said that with current low demand the final figure was likely be around four million tonnes.