High-quality rice accounts for a large proportion
Information from the Workshop "Shaping Vietnamese rice grains in the new era" recently held in Can Tho City on April 4, shows that in 2024, the Vietnamese rice industry made a special mark with an export output of over 9 million tons, export turnover of about 5.75 billion USD.
In the rice export structure of Vietnam, high-quality rice has a large proportion, accounting for 60 - 70%. High-end branded rice accounts for about 15% and about 10 - 15% is low-end rice.
The export market for Vietnamese rice is increasingly diverse, from Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Europe, America to the Atlantic. In which, Asia is still a key market, accounting for more than 70% of total exports.
It is estimated that the total export volume of rice in the first quarter of 2025 will reach about 2.2 million tons, an increase of 2% over the same period in 2024. The structure of exported rice varieties is shifting with the trend of increasing the proportion of fragrant rice, Japonica, specialty rice and high-value rice products.
Be careful when restructuring
Regarding the fact that high-quality rice is currently accounting for a large proportion of Vietnam's export rice structure, Mr. Nguyen Anh Phong - Deputy Director of the Institute of Agricultural and Environmental Policy Strategy - said that Vietnam is quite quick to dominate the rice market. Businesses are also quick to search for the most profitable markets and segments. Accordingly, the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment always creates the best environment for business and supports public policies such as conservation, varieties, quality, negotiations to open the market.
High- brand rice is the choice of businesses and businesses that play an important role in market orientation and value chain in the Vietnamese rice industry. Currently, Vietnamese enterprises are expanding their search for potential markets. The Ministry of Agriculture and Environment has assigned the Institute to review new and potential markets. From there, analyze which rice products Vietnam will export, who are the competitors and what measures are there to gain a good market share in these markets.
Although it is only being implemented, it can be seen that the growth rate of Vietnamese rice imports in the African market is happening quite quickly with more than 30% in the past 2-3 years. Vietnam also has a specific market for the high-end rice segment such as the Middle East and some other countries such as the US and France.
In particular, Vietnam has a Sustainable Development Project of one million hectares of high-quality, low-emission rice cultivation associated with green growth in the Mekong Delta by 2030. This was raised by Vietnam in negotiations with countries on rice exports, with the message that our country is the first country in the world to produce high-quality, low-emission rice on a large scale. This is a strong way of marketing for the high-end market.
Mr. Le Thanh Tung - Vice President of the Vietnam Rice Industry Association - said that the proportion of Vietnamese rice groups currently exported is positioned according to world demand. Changing this ratio if only focusing on rice with high export value will not be able to bring high efficiency because there have been no large-scale testing and production management of a special and special rice variety.
We need to consider carefully when we want to change a certain structure in the structure of Vietnamese rice. This is a chain with many factors and people participating synchronously. Therefore, if we want to develop or change this ratio, we need to start from research, selection, production organization, adaptation in ecological regions of Vietnam to blending and displaying..., Mr. Tung said.
