The target was announced at a conference on realising Vietnam’s rice export strategy during the 2017-2020 period, with a view towards 2030.
Under the strategy, Vietnam will gradually reduce its rice export volumes whilst increasing the proportion of high-earning varieties, with the annual volume for the 2017-2020 period targeted at 4.5-5 million tonnes and shrinking to 4 million tonnes by 2030.
Specifically, low and medium-quality white rice will not exceed 20% of the total export volume by 2020, while high-quality white rice accounts for approximately 25%, fragrant, speciality and Japonica rice around 30% and glutinous rice 20%.
By 2030, fragrant, speciality and Japonica rice will make up 40% of Vietnam’s rice export volume, with glutinous rice at 25% and other nutritious rice at over 10%.
According to the delegates at the conference, in order to achieve this target, Vietnam needs to deal with a number of issues that are currently plaguing Vietnam’s rice industry.
At present, Vietnam’s rice export growth is heavily skewed towards volume growth, rice farming is not linked to the market demand and exports are highly dependent on a number of markets.
In addition, Vietnam’s rice exporters have not been able to build well-known brands or meet the market’s diverse demands.
At the conference, the delegates discussed a number of solutions, such as re-organising production and post-harvest processing and storage, building national rice brands, strengthening international cooperation and enhancing the capacity of domestic rice traders.
