In the first 11 months of 2006, Viet Nam shipped 213,000 tonnes of rice worth 53 million USD to the African country that imported a total of 900,000 tonnes last year.
According to the ministry, Pakistan also planned to import rice from the Southeast Asian nation in order to stabilise the domestic market amidst a lean harvest in the country this year.
Vietnamese rice is currently exported for 305 USD per tonne, up 45 USD over the same period last year, said the ministry.
Statistics released by the General Statistics Office shows that Viet Nam – the world’s second largest rice exporter after Thailand - shipped abroad 2.3 million tones of rice worth over 731 million USD in the first half of 2007, year-on-year decreases of 9 percent in volume and 5.6 percent in turnover