Statistics from the Vietnam Trade Office in Singapore showed that export turnover of glutinous rice to the city-state rose more than five fold to 8.9 million SGD, broken rice shot up 187.3% to 1.5 million SGD, and milled or husked fragrant rice soared 161.35% to 27.27 million SGD.

Meanwhile, earnings from white rice witnessed a slight increase of 1.91% to 34.5 million SGD, while revenue from regular brown rice fell 51.2% to 102,000 SGD.

Vietnamese rivals, Thailand and India, sold some 70.73 million SDG and 58.41 million SGD worth of rice to the nation.

Singapore’s increasing rice import is attributable to India’s rice export ban, and the country’s tourism recovery. During the six-month span, it spent nearly 224.5 million SGD on rice purchase, up 13.62% year-on-year.

According to Vietnamese trade counseller Cao Xuan Thang, major competitors of Vietnam in the Singaporean market, namely Thailand, India and Japan, have paid due attention to enhancing their product images, while Vietnamese firms have had no large-scale promotion campaign.

He stressed that Vietnamese exporters must strive to improve their competitive edge as well as rice quality, given the strict management of the rice market by the Singaporean government.

The signing of agreements and commitments at the governmental level regarding rice supply will contribute to stabilising Vietnamese rice shipment to Singapore, he suggested.

In the first three months of this year, Vietnam for the first time surpassed India and Thailand to become the largest rice exporter to Singapore by shipping 36.15 million SGD worth of rice, an increase of 80.46% over the same period in 2023.