Many participants agreed that managing rice exports is always a hot topic because lawmakers have no chance to publicly address questions about policies to ensure domestic food security while also protecting the interests of farmers and businesses.

The Vice chairman of the National Assembly’s Economic Committee, Le Quoc Dung, said Vietnam should propose reasonable prices to ensure profits for producers, processors and distributors, instead of focusing on export volume. The State should have plans to regulate the market reasonably to ensure long-term and short-term profits and restructure the Food Association to deal with conflicts of interest between producers, the farmers’ association and exporters.

Sharing the same view, Nguyen Tri Ngoc, head of the Plantation Department under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, said it is difficult to manage rice exports. The management must ensure rice production, improve production efficiency and raise Vietnamese trademark’s position in order not to put pressure on businesses.

The Vice chairman of the Vietnam Food Association, Nguyen Tho Tri said that as of October 2009, Vietnam has exported 5.327 million tonnes of rice, earning US$2.173 billion, up 36 percent compared to the same period last year. Currently, all economic sectors are allowed to export rice and are not restricted by quotas. Earlier this year, following the Government’s direction, the association proposed a ceiling on export prices and controlled exports under the leadership of the Ministry of Industry and Trade.