Farmers carry a bag of rice in southern Can Tho City.
Photo by VnExpress/Thanh Tran. 

The average export price of Vietnamese rice in the first seven months jumped to $487.2 per tonne, the highest level since 2011. 

This marks a year-on-year increase of 12.5 percent, according to the Agriculture Products Processing and Development Department (Agrotrade).

The Covid-19 pandemic has pushed many countries to increase rice purchases for bolstering reserves, leading to higher prices, it said.

Vietnam’s 5-percent broken rice is currently priced at around $480-490 per tonne and is forecast to continue rising until the next harvest which falls in next month.

In the first seven months, the Philippines was the top importer of Vietnamese rice, accounting for 35.3 percent of total export volume. Some markets that boosted their rice purchases from Vietnam were: Senegal, up 19.8 times, Indonesia, up 3.1 times and China, up 84 percent.

The country has exported 4.5 million tonnes of rice worth $2.2 billion in the first eight months, up 10.4 percent in value year-on-year.

Vietnam is the world's third largest rice exporter after India and Thailand. Last year its exports were worth $2.81 billion, with top markets being the Philippines, Ivory Coast, China, and Malaysia.