HANOI - Export quotations of Vietnamese 5-percent broken rice advanced this week to $360-$375 a metric ton, near a three-month high, on tight domestic supply amid possible crop damage from dry weather, traders said on Monday.
Prices rose on higher domestic prices as exporters sought to build stocks and farmers held back their grain, citing adverse impacts of salination on rice fields in the Mekong Delta food basket, traders in Ho Chi Minh City said.
"While external demand is slow, exporters are also holding back, anticipating higher prices on the domestic markets later if the dry weather worsens the situation in the Mekong Delta," a trader in Ho Chi Minh City said.
At $375 a metric ton, the price is the highest since Dec. 16, 2015, based on Reuters data.
The Mekong Delta is facing drought and serious salination, caused by the El Nino phenomenon which would peak in April, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung told a conference on Monday in southern Can Tho, according to the government's website.
