November 17, 2009
NEW DELHI (AFP) - India is in talks with Thailand and Vietnam about buying rice to offset an expected production shortfall, a minister said Tuesday following the weakest monsoon in nearly four decades.
"We're talking to the Thai and Vietnamese governments," Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma told a meeting with provincial ministers, Dow Jones Newswires reported.
India is the world's second-largest rice producer, but this year's crop is expected to be far below the bumper harvests of the two previous years after the worst monsoon rainfall since 1972.
Three state-owned trading firms, MMTC, STC and PEC, have been asked to import 10,000 tonnes of rice each.
Private traders have already bought supplies from overseas.
Rice prices in the domestic market have soared by 25 percent in the last four months on supply worries.
