Hanoi, June 25 - Vietnam exported an estimated 3.8 million tonnes of rice in the first half of this year, a surge of 56.2 percent from the same period last year, the government said on Thursday.
The grain exports brought in $1.82 billion, or a rise of 24 percent from the same period last year, the government's General Statistics Office said in its monthly report.
The estimated export volume accounted for 76 percent of the total annual target.
On June 12, Industry and Trade Ministry Vu Huy Hoang said Vietnam, the world's second-largest rice exporter after Thailand, had secured contracts to ship 4.1 million tonnes of the grain so far this year.
Thai rice prices held steady at recent firm levels on Wednesday although demand had fallen, while prices in Vietnam edged down as supply increased, traders and exporters said.
Vietnamese exporters have sought to raise the annual export target by 20 percent to 6 million tonnes to deal with mounting stocks in the Mekong Delta food basket, but the government has yet to announce any decisions.
Traders said harvesting of the summer-autumn crop, the Delta's second-highest yielding crop, has begun. It will peak from the latter half of July. The harvest ends in August before seasonal floods on the Mekong River arrive.
Vietnam produced a bumper winter-spring crop this year, with output edging up slightly to 18.6 million tonnes of paddy, or unhusked rice, from 18.3 million tonnes last year, government figures show.