Hanoi, Nov 12 - Vietnam's rice exports this year could reach 4.7 million tonnes, a minister said on Wednesday, giving a slightly lower projection than the prime minister last week.
"The global food situation has improved. Importing countries have better output recently," Industry and Trade Minister Vu Huy Hoang told National Assembly delegates in a televised broadcast.
Hoang said Vietnam's rice exports this year could range between 4.5 million tonnes and 4.7 million tonnes, compared with 4.5 million tonnes shipped in 2007 when the country was the world's third-largest exporter after Thailand and India.
Last week Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung said Vietnam was expected to export more than 1 million tonnes of rice in the last two months of the year, bringing its annual shipments to more than 5 million tonnes.
"The rice stockpiled in the country now remains high," Hoang said, adding that most of the grain left over was the low-quality 25 percent broken grain, which cannot be stored for a long time.
Vietnam exported nearly 4.1 million tonnes of rice in the first 10 months of this year, down 7 percent from the same period last year, while its revenues surged 83 percent to $2.6 billion, government figures show.