The Ministry of Industry and Trade’s (MOIT) statistics show that China’s import of glutinous rice from Vietnam keeps falling.

Vietnam is the biggest glutinous rice exporter to China, and China is Vietnam’s biggest market for Vietnamese glutinous rice. China’s maintenance of its ‘zero-Covid’ policy has significantly affected its demand for glutinous rice.

Vietnam’s rice exports to China in January-July 2022 dropped by 27.5 percent in quantity and 28.2 in value compared with the same period last year to 466,225 tons and $242.74 million. Meanwhile, export of glutinous rice was 223,464 tons, a fall of 53 percent year on year. 

However, China has increased imports of fragrant rice, especially ST21 and ST24 from Vietnam. Fragrant rice exports to China rose by 58.6 percent to 188,459 tons in this period. 

Reuters quoted sources from the Chinese agriculture ministry saying that some areas in Jiangsu and Anhui provinces have been severely affected by hot weather. 

The situation has cooled after recent rains, but rainfall has been unevenly distributed and drought is still occurring in some areas. These provinces made up 11.5 percent of grain production in 2021.

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA), in its August 2022 report, predicted that China’s consumption of rice in 2022/23 would be 156.6 million tons, a slight increase of 156.29 million tons compared with the previous crop.

China is expected to continue to be the world’s largest rice import country with 6 million tons in 2023. China’s rice inventories are predicted to drop by 4 million tons in the 2022/23 crop to 109 million tons.

According to Chinese customs, with the reduction of 27 percent in export volume, Vietnam has fallen to the third position for rice supply to China from the first position in 2021. Vietnam’s market share in China has also dropped from 22.5 to 11.5 percent.

India has replaced Vietnam to become the biggest rice exporter to China with 1.5 million tons, up 2.6 times year on year, accounting for 36.9 percent of China’s rice imports.

Meanwhile, China’s rice imports from Pakistan and Thailand increased by 72 percent, and Laos by three times.

So far this year, China has boosted imports of broken rice from India and Pakistan for animal feed as wheat and barley prices have increased.

Tam An