"This will be 400,000-500,000 tons more than last year," Mai Tien Dung, chief of the Government Office, said at a press conference on Tuesday.
Exports in the first five months of this year increased by 3.7 percent from a year earlier to 2.86 million tons worth $1.4 billion, according to the General Statistics Office (GSO). The average export price in January-May was $485 per ton, up 13 percent.
Dung said the country had irregular rice harvests this year as a result of dry weather and saltwater intrusion in the Mekong Delta, a rice growing hub.
Last year Vietnam, the third biggest exporter after India and Thailand, had exported 6.37 million tons of rice for $2.81 billion, with the top market being the Philippines, which bought over 2.1 million tons.
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