Vietnamese rice exporter to borrow $9.6 mln from Malaysian bank

Trung An High-Tech Agriculture JSC, a leading rice exporter in Vietnam, plans to borrow VND230 billion ($9.55 million) from Malaysia’s Malayan Banking Berhad (Maybank) to augment its working capital.

The company affirmed the move in a Thursday filing with the Hanoi Stock Exchange (HNX).

The 12-month loan, with the firm’s assets as collateral, will have different interest rates for different terms. Pham Thai Binh, board chairman and CEO, has been tasked with working with Maybank to complete the borrowing.

Trung An, based in the Mekong Delta city of Can Tho and listed on the HNX as TAR, recorded post-tax profits of VND605.89 million ($25,150) in the first half of this year, equivalent to 1.2% of the corresponding figure in 2022.

Revenues reached VND2.54 trillion ($105.4 million) in the period, up 47.4% year-on-year.

The firm made a post-tax loss of VND7.89 billion ($327,600) in the second quarter.

On August 4, Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Hong Dien said at a meeting in Can Tho city that Vietnam, the world’s third-largest rice exporter after India and Thailand, was expected to ship abroad 7.5 million tons of rice this year while maintaining national food security. The country exported 7.1 million tons of rice last year.

The meeting was in the context of rising global rice prices and India halting its largest rice export category to calm domestic prices, which climbed to multi-year highs in recent weeks as erratic weather threatened production.

Dien said domestic exporters need to speed up shipments but regulators must safeguard national food security.

Vietnam’s 2023 rice production is expected to reach 43.2 or 43.4 million tons, up 1.8-2% compared to last year, Tran Duy Dong, head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade's import-export department, said at the meeting.