Viet Nam won a Philippine government auction for the export of 250,000 tonnes of rice, according to the Viet Nam Food Association.

At the auction held on November 4, Viet Nam won the contract to export 150,000 tonnes of 25 per cent broken rice at US$480 per tonne with another 100,000 tonnes to be provided by South Korea’s Deawoo Group at $468 a tonne.

The Philippines has become a major rice export market for Viet Nam. By the end of this year, the country might hold another import rice option, with the market potentially importing 2 million tonnes of rice from other countries in 2010.

Vietnamese experts said the Philippines opened the auction earlier than scheduled because it was worried about rice losses caused by floods and bad weather in India and Southeast Asia pushing up rice prices next year.

Meanwhile, India might also import about 2 million tonnes of rice, including government-to-government deals with Thailand and Viet Nam, according to a correspondent of the Vietnam News Agency in India.

The Vietnamese government might also give incentives for such imports to be spread over a year, said India's Economic Times last week.

A ministerial panel, headed by Indian finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, would make the decision on various proposals for rice imports in this month, it said.

The worst drought in 37 years had seriously affected rice outputs, raising prospects of higher food prices and further dependence on imports for the main food crop.

To help cover a fall of about 15 million tonnes in the summer-autumn rice crop, the federal government last month allowed tax-free imports.

Three state-owned firms had been asked to import 30,000 tonnes of rice by mid-December.