Vietnam rice sector requires more support

Crop restructuring: A farmer harvests rice outside Hanoi. Among the challenges facing the industry are problems in post-harvest preservation, which can lead losses, sometimes as high as 10% to 30%. — Reuters

HANOI: Despite a bright outlook for rice exports in the second half of 2023, the sector still needs more support to shift from quantity to quality and seize global market opportunities.

About 6.6 million tonnes of milled rice from the Mekong Delta, the biggest rice production region of Vietnam, are planned to be exported in 2023, including three million tonnes of high-quality rice, 2.1 million tonnes of fragrant and specialty rice, 0.9 million tonnes of medium quality rice and 0.6 million tonnes of glutinous rice.