MoIT asks for rice export tax exemption

Hanoi (VNA) - The Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoT) has asked the
Ministry of Finance to exempt rice from export taxes in a move to boost
exports.

Higher exports would help push up rice purchases and help farmers, MoIT
said.

In the past two months, domestic rice exporters have bought a large volume
of rice from farmers, according to Government instructions.

The Government imposed a tax on a rice exports in July, concerned there
would be a shortage. The rice export tax scheme is only applied to the best
quality rice. Tax rates range from 800,000 VND (48.5 USD) to 2.9 million VND
(175.7 VND) per tonne.

According to the Vietnam Food Association, the company has so far this year
exported more than 3.7 million tonnes of rice, so exporters need to ship
another 1 million tonnes of rice in the remaining months of the year to meet
the annual export target of 4.7 million tonnes.

Rice exporters have signed contracts to further export roughly 600,000 to
700,000 tonnes, and were seeking new customers in Africa and the Middle
East.-Enditem