Vietnam is the world’s third-largest rice exporter behind India and Thailand. Until recently, China was the country’s largest export market but trade disruptions and falling demand due to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis is prompting the Vietnamese to looking further afield for new markets… all the way to Africa.
Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyễn Xuân Cường is encouraging the country’s rice industry to find new buyers in Africa and the Mideast especially since there will be new opportunities to capture market share from Thailand, where the rice crop has suffered from prolonged drought.