Twelve commercial banks have supplied food companies with loans to enable them to buy rice paddy and rice for reserves.
Under
a Government programme, the banks have provided the companies
interest-free loans for buying 1 million tonnes of products harvested
from the winter-spring rice crop.
The Government is fully subsidising interest on the loans for three months.
The State Bank of Vietnam has approved Phuong Dong Bank’s plan to
earmark 1 trillion VND (47.6 million USD) for the purpose.
Lien VietPostBank said it has been involved with the reserve-purchase programme since 2010.
According to the Government’s website, since the beginning of this
year’s programme started on February 20, the food companies have bought
nearly 212,000 tonnes of 1 million tonnes to be brought from the
winter-spring crop.
The Government’s policy to buy rice for
reserves has supported the grain’s prices, improving the farmers’
income, Deputy Minister for Industry and Trade Tran Quoc Khanh told
provincial authorities from the Mekong Delta at a recent meeting.
The programme will also help regulate rice consumption and exports this year.
Exporters
have so far signed contracts for over 2.8 million tonnes of rice this
year, double last year’s volumes at the same time.-VNA