HANOI, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam sold 307,000 tons of rice to overseas markets in the first month of 2014, pocketing 127.5 million U.S. dollars, down 24.11 percent in volume and 30.5 percent in value, said a report by Vietnam Food Association (VFA).

E-portal of Vietnamese government quoted VFA on Tuesday as saying the country fulfilled the set plan of exporting rice in January at low level.

Under this progress, VFA forecast Vietnam to export 300,000 to 350,000 tons of rice in February, said the report.

According to VFA, Vietnam's rice exports went down in January due to the sharp decline of centralized procurement contracts from traditional markets of the Philippines, China and Africa.

Meanwhile, in January, Vietnam's rice export prices remained basically stable. Specifically, five-percent broken rice was sold at 405 to 410 U.S. dollars per ton, equivalent to that of Indian rice but higher than those of Thai and Pakistani rice due to limited supply from these exporters, said VFA report.

VFA quoted local experts as saying that they are expecting positive signals for Vietnamese rice exports in the coming time.

The first good signal came from increasing rice supply with possibilities of Vietnamese exporters to use government inventory and harvest of winter-spring rice crop in Vietnam. The second resulted from returning demands for Vietnamese rice from markets such as China and Africa, said VFA.

Source: Xinhua

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