Trading in Asia's rice market weakened on thin demand amid price declines in Vietnam, but rates held up in Thailand as exporters stockpiled the grain before the holidays, traders said on Wednesday.

"A major exporter has been buying a lot of rice from the market for the past few days," a Bangkok-based trader said, adding fears prices could rise after the holidays prompted more buying.

"Thai rice prices have never been this low so they probably think it is a good time to buy," he said. Thai benchmark 5 percent broken grade rice edged up to $418 per tonne on Wednesday, free-on-board (FOB), from $413-$415 a week ago, thanks to the domestic purchases.

On Monday, Thailand's military junta approved the sale of 247,000 tonnes of rice in an open tender, part of continued efforts to offload rice from huge stockpiles accumulated under the previous regime.

On Friday, Thailand struck a deal to sell 2 million tonnes to China, also the biggest buyer of Vietnamese rice this year.

In Vietnam, prices eased as buyers stayed away during the holiday-shortened week while stocks thinned, traders said.

The 5 percent broken rice dipped to $385-$390 a tonne, FOB Saigon Port, from $390-$395 a tonne last Wednesday. The 25 percent broken rice stood unchanged at $360-$365 a tonne.

"The remaining stocks are very low now and only from late February can Vietnam offer its fresh winter-spring rice," a trader in Ho Chi Minh City said, referring to the country's biggest rice crop with its harvest peaking in March/April.

Thai rice exports this year could touch 10.2 million tonnes, just 500,000 tonnes below its 2011 record high, a level that could help it displace India as the top exporter, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said in a quarterly report issued earlier this month.

It projected India's exports at 10 million tonnes and said Vietnam will ship 6.6 million tonnes during the whole of 2014. The three countries would account for 67 percent of global rice trade in 2014, the FAO data showed.

Source:brecorder.com