(India) India's exports recover fully, global rice prices fall to eight-year low

India's rice exports have resumed in full since the lifting of the non-Basmati white rice export ban at the end of September 2024 and the lifting of the broken rice export ban in March 2025. Global rice prices continue to fall with the return of supply: Thailand's 5% broken white rice export price fell to US $372.5 per ton in August, down about 26% from the end of 2024 and the lowest since 2017.

The FAO All Rice Price Index fell 22.6 percent in May from a year earlier, near a three-year low. The continuous high yield of global rice is the fundamental factor for the price decline: FAO predicts that the global rice production will reach a record high in 2025/26, and the Indian government's rice inventory was once close to 60 million tons.

India's rice exports are expected to be about 21.5 million tons in 2025, an increase of nearly 20% year-on-year, re-opening the gap with Thailand, the second place; Thailand's exports have fallen by about 20%, and Vietnam has surpassed Thailand by virtue of its exports to the Philippines, Indonesia and other markets. The second largest rice exporter in the world. On the demand side, Indonesia will withdraw from the market for large-scale imports in 2024. The Philippines announced in August that it will implement a 60-day rice import ban from September 1, further suppressing international rice prices.

For importing countries, the fall in rice prices has significantly eased the pressure on food security brought about by the wave of export restrictions in 2023, while for farmers in exporting countries, the decline in rice prices is eroding planting income, and the Thai and Vietnamese industries have called on the government to intervene. The global rice market is shifting from "supply anxiety" to "excess digestion.

Source: Financial Times; FAO Food Outlook; Vietnam Agriculture Sector Statistics, August 2025.