Vietnam News Network

Vinafood 2, the Vietnam Southern Food Corporation, will use the funds to buy 2.8 million tons of rice in the Mekong Delta next year.

BIDV, Vietnam's second largest lender by assets, has loaned a total of VND1 trillion ($5.9 million) to the corporation and its affiliates this year through November.

The loan commitment was made following the government’s policy to ensure national food security and stimulate investment and consumption, BIDV chairman Tran Bac Ha said at the signing ceremony Friday.

The lender also said it would assure loans for the purchase of 3.5 million tons out of the country’s expected export of five million tons of rice next year.

The government last month ordered food corporations in the north and south to buy rice from local farmers facing a rice glut and lower prices.

The government also asked state-owned banks to help fund the purchases.

The central bank last month asked state-owned Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Agribank) to offer its cheapest loans to help exporters buy up to 600,000 tons of rice from local farmers.

Vietnam, the world's second biggest rice exporter after Thailand, earned $2.7 billion from rice exports this year through November, an increase of 90 percent from last year’s $1.4 billion.