Dr. Alan Phan, a well-known overseas Vietnamese fund manager, said, “The government focuses on producing low-quality rice for export to China, leaving the country struggling to find new market as demand from China falls."

Currently, Vietnam is facing fierce competition to find markets for rice exports as Thailand opens up its rice store with a capacity of 20 million tonnes and the country may sell its rice at prices much lower than Vietnam’s. This would obviously affect Vietnam’s rice export market, especially in the major market of China.

Several other countries in the world have also boosted rice exports, addition to the competition.

Vietnamese workers packaging rice for export

“The government meddles too much in the rice export markets and rice exports are controlled by too many agencies and complicated procedures,” Alan Phan said.

According to him, the government should slacken its control over rice exports in order to intensify the country’s competitiveness.

Concerning the fact that Cambodia plans to expand its rice export markets into the US and South Korean markets, Alan Phan said these are market-based economies, so those who meet consumers’ demand would win in those markets.

“It’s necessary to operate in line with the market rule and consumer demand instead of being controlled too much by government policies,” he emphasised.

He went on to say that when a country succeeds in applying the market rules and Vietnam wants to follow suit the country needs to learn their experience to increase its competitiveness and increase its rice export market share in the world.