Vietnam PM Asks Local Firms to Buy 1 Mln Tons of Paddy
Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung November 29 asked the Northern and Southern Food Corporations to buy one million tons of paddy, or between 500,000 and 600,000 tons of husked rice in the Mekong Delta.
The PM also asked the companies to complete the purchases until February 2009.
The PM also requested that the Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development to provide loans to the two state-run corporations. The government will support food companies with 100 per cent interest-free loans to assist the two corporations in buying rice stocks.
This is the second time in a month that the Prime Minister has demanded the two food corporations buy rice from farmers.
In early November, he told the two corporations to buy 300,000 tons of rice from farmers and agricultural businesses.
He also demanded banks extend low interest loans to farmers to maintain production.
Vietnam had exported 4.39 million tons of rice worth more than US$2.7 billion. The country expected to ship one million tons of rice abroad in the year’s last two months. (Saigon Liberation, Vietnam Agriculture)
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