Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - After the Government took steps to prevent riceprices from falling in February, prices have started to inch up in the Cuu Long(Mekong) Delta – the granary of Vietnam – though not by much.

Still, the Government’s purchase of rice to stock reserves was a temporarysolution. The rice industry requires more radical and sustainable solutionslike establishing value chains.

Following a requirement of the State Bank of Vietnam in early March, severalcommercial banks provided loans with three to six month terms at preferentialrates of 6 percent to enterprises so they could buy rice from farmers.

This helped push up prices in region by around 200-300 VND per kilo.

Nguyen Ngoc Nam, President of the Vietnam Food Association, the difficulty nowwas seeking markets for rice consumption, especially exports.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Vietnamese ricemust now compete fiercely with other big producers like Thailand and India aswell as emerging producers like Cambodia, Myanmar and Pakistan, who wereproviding a variety of high quality varieties of rice.

China – the largest rice export market of Vietnam – was opening its doors torice imports from India, Cambodia and Myanmar.

♏[Vietnam loses out on global market without rice brand]

Pham Van Chinh, Director of the Ministry of Industry and Trade’s Import-ExportDepartment, said that many markets had significantly changed their rice importpolicies, such as increasing tariffs and allowing more rice providers tocompete.

Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Tran Quoc Khanh said that countriesimporting rice tended not only to increase rice production by themselves butalso to diversify import markets to reduce dependence on a single or severalexport markets.

“Vietnam should have a more radical plan for the development of the riceindustry,” Khanh said, adding that establishing value chains to diversify ricetypes and enhance rice quality was critical.

Pham Thai Binh, General Director of the Trung An Hi-Tech Agriculture JointStock Company, said that promoting the development of a large-scale paddy fieldmodel to establish rice value chains would be an important solution.

However, to do this, enterprises needed more credit support from theGovernment.

“It is important that credit policies for agricultural and rural developmentare implemented efficiently. Credit policies with an aim of sharing risks anddamages for participants in the agriculture production chain should also bepromoted,” Binh said.

Director of Soc Trang province’s Department of Agriculture and RuralDevelopment Luong Minh Quyet said that in the long term, the rice industryneeds proper planning for raw materials. In addition, enterprises and farmersneeded to be supported in terms of farming techniques, processing technologiesand seeking consumption markets.

Vo Tong Xuan, an agriculture expert, said that to promote rice consumption,farmers and companies must cooperate to produce rice following qualitystandards.

Xuan also pointed out that the rice industry in Vietnam lacked key enterprisesthat worked directly with international intermediary firms to promote exportslike Thailand.

Firms and farmers also need to get updates on market information and demand forrice production, Xuan said.

At a Government meeting on rescuing rice in February, Prime Minister NguyenXuan Phuc stressed that the way forward for Vietnamese rice was improvingquality and increasing added value to meet the global market demands and buildthe brand for Vietnamese rice.-VNS/VNA