El Nino Shrinking Rice Crop Worldwide to Spur Vietnamese Sales
- First quarter shipments seen jumping 14% to 1.3 million tons
- Global rice output forecast to drop in 2015-16 on El Nino
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Rice exports from Vietnam may increase 14 percent in the first quarter as the strongest El Nino in almost two decades shrivels crops in some countries, spurring importers to build reserves.
Shipments will jump to 1.3 million metric tons in the three months ending March from 1.14 million tons a year earlier, said Tran Tuan Anh, Vietnam’s deputy minister of industry and trade. The world’s third-biggest exporter is already seeing a spurt in demand, he said in an e-mail on Nov. 25. October rice shipments surged 43 percent to 859,000 tons from a year earlier, the highest level since July 2012, government data show.