Vietnam Might Apply Rice Export Taxes

Vietnam's Finance Ministry is drafting a document under which the country will impose export taxes on rice export, instead of annual rice volume quotas as it currently does, local newspaper Vietnam Agriculture reported Monday.

When prices of rice in the domestic market increase considerably, Vietnam will raise the taxes to limit rice export. When the rice supplies are abundant and the commodity's prices are low, the country will lower the taxes to boost the export.

According to a local food expert, the current quota-based rice export regulation has some shortcomings: the state does not collect rice export taxes, rice exporters have to undergo cumbersome procedures set by the Vietnam Food Association, and foreign-invested enterprises in Vietnam, which will be allowed to export rice from next year, may not comply with the quota-related procedures.

Vietnam, exporting nearly 1.4 million tons of rice worth roughly 600 million U.S. dollars, will export some 700,000 tons of the commodities from May to June; local newspaper Industry and Trade on Monday quoted the association's Chairman Truong Thanh Phong as saying.

Vietnam, currently having some 1.3 million tons of rice in inventory, will start harvesting the early Summer-Autumn rice crop in the southern Mekong Delta next month. Export prices of Vietnamese rice currently stand at over 1,000 dollars per ton, Phong said.

Vietnam, the world's second biggest rice exporter after Thailand, exported, mainly to the Philippines, Malaysia, Cuba, Indonesia and Japan, 4.5 million tons of rice worth nearly 1.5 billion U.S. dollars in 2007, down 3.1 percent in volume but up 13.9 percent in value against 2006, according to the country's General Statistics Office.

Source: CRIEnglish