Business Times 29 Apr 08;
This comes as prices soared nearly 100% over last 2 weeks
(HO CHI MINH CITY) Vietnam has banned rice speculation amid panic buying while Malaysia and the Philippines took steps to ensure that their citizens could afford the grain as soaring prices triggered unease across Asia.
Global rice prices have risen sharply this year because of growing demand and poor weather in some rice-producing countries.
Some Asian countries, including India and Vietnam, have curbed rice exports to guarantee their own supplies.
In Vietnam, crowds flocked to rice markets over the weekend in Ho Chi Minh City, the country's largest city, to stock up on rice as prices soared nearly 100 per cent over the last two weeks, traders and media reports said yesterday.
'I have been in this business 33 years and I have never seen anything like it,' said Huyuh Kim Hoa, a trader at the city's Tran Chanh Chieu rice market. The top quality rice at the market was selling for US$1.25 per kilogram, traders said.
Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung insisted supplies in Vietnam - the world's second-largest rice exporting country after Thailand - were 'completely adequate' for domestic consumption, state media quoted him as saying late on Sunday. He warned that organisations and individuals speculating in the commodity would be 'severely punished.'
State media called the weekend buying 'rice fever' and told readers that the country had enough rice.
'Don't panic,' read the headline in the Phapluat daily.
The Vietnam Food Association said speculators, including real estate companies, had rushed to buy rice in recent days, while wholesalers in the southern Mekong Delta, the country's main rice-growing region, were also holding back supplies.
Unrest over the food crisis has led to deaths in Cameroon and Haiti, cost Haitian Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis his job, and caused hungry textile workers to clash with police in Bangladesh.
Asian governments are trying to cushion the blow for millions of people who live below or close to the poverty line. Malaysia said it planned to subsidise locally grown rice.
'At the moment there is no rice subsidy,' said Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Minister Shahrir Samad. 'We just control the price. But that (subsidy) will come,' he said, without specifying when any measure would be introduced.
Malaysia grows about 65 to 70 per cent of the rice its people consume, while the rest is imported, mainly from Thailand. With the price of Thai rice nearly tripling over the last five months to US$1,000 a tonne, the government expects consumers to switch to local rice, whose price - so far steady - is expected to rise.
Meanwhile, Thai rice prices are likely to ease by about 20 per cent in the coming weeks as arrivals from the new domestic crop have improved substantially, said Korbsook Iamsuri, secretary general of the Thai Rice Exporters' Association, yesterday.
'It is very likely that prices will ease. After the Philippines tender, I don't see any strong bullish factor for the market to drive it higher,' Mr Korbsook said in an interview.
Mr Shahrir warned that Malaysians must face the reality of the global food crisis.
'We will need to see changes in lifestyle among Malaysians to accommodate this economic situation,' he said.
Philippine government officials said they plan to issue special cards for the poor to allow them to buy government-subsidised rice at 18 pesos (S$0.58) a kilogram, compared to the current commercial price of 35 pesos.
The rice cards are supposed to benefit the bottom third of the poorest families in the capital, Manila. Outside the capital, the government said it will distribute separate bank cash cards to help families. -- AP, Reuters
