Vietnam maintains top position in rice exports to Singapore

Statistics from the Trade Office of the Vietnamese Embassy in Singapore show that some groups continued to witness very strong increases in value, namely sticky rice (8.9 million SGD, up more than 5 times), broken rice (1.5 million SGD, up 187.3%) and milled or peeled fragrant rice (27.27 million SGD, up 161.35%). Vietnam’s key rice group in the Singapore market is white rice, with a slight increase of 1.91%, worth 34.5 million SGD. The only group seeing a decrease compared to the same period last year was regular brown rice (102,000 SGD, down 51.2%).

Vietnam maintains top position in rice exports to Singapore. (Photo: congthuong.vn)

Vietnam now holds the largest market share in the city-island state for three rice groups. They are white rice accounting for 48.62%; fragrant rice, milled or peeled, accounting for 69.43%; and sticky rice making up 78.05% of the total. It was followed by Thailand and India with SGD70.73 million and SGD58.41 million, respectively. The total turnover of the top three exporting countries accounts for 90.21% of the rice market share in Singapore.

This strong increase seen in Singapore’s rice import demand from 2023 continued in the first half of the year, mainly due to India's ban on rice exports and the rapid recovery recorded in tourist arrivals to Singapore, a factor causing the country to increase rice imports.

According to Cao Xuan Thang, trade counselor and head of the Vietnam Trade Office in Singapore, Thailand, India and Japan are Vietnam’s biggest competitors in the Singapore rice market. These countries are very interested in investing in promoting product images and have agreements with importers and distributors on keeping the names and brands of their rice products.

He emphasized that Vietnamese rice businesses must continue to strive to improve their competitiveness and the quality of their rice products as the Singaporean rice market is closely managed by the Singaporean Government, as demonstrated by the Singaporean Government’s review and issuance of import licenses. This can be seen through actions such as the direct inspection and control of rice quality before it is released to the market./.