We are pleased to send you the new issue of the FAO Rice Price Update. 

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·         The FAO All Rice Price Index (2002-04=100) averaged 223.0 points in February 2019, virtually unchanged from its revised estimate of 223.3 points for January 2019. Quotations of higher and lower quality Indica rice receded by 1.7-1.8 percent during February. These falls, however, were largely compensated by a 1.3 percent rise in medium-grain quotations. The latter lifted the Japonica Index to a four-year high of 272.3 points. The Aromatic Index changed little last month.

·         February quotations of Indica white rice declined across much of Asia, as fresh demand remained persistently thin, overshadowing news of the passage of the rice tariffication law in the Philippines. Vietnamese prices stood most affected by the bearish undertone, sliding by another 6 percent, as new crop arrivals from the winter-spring harvest compounded on the sluggish pace of trade. Efforts to attract sales and remain competitive lowered values in Thailand and Pakistan. A currency depreciation and a late turnaround in Rabi plantings also provided room for February values of Indian white rice to weaken somewhat. Sentiment was firmer in Indian and Thai parboiled markets, even if lackluster African demand and soon to be harvested offseason crops prevented parboiled prices from making significant inroads in both countries. In the major South American exporters, quiet trading activities capped upward pressure stemming from seasonal tightness and poor prospects for 2019 harvests, now underway. Meanwhile, long-grain prices dipped to 18-month lows in the United States, depressed by thin buying interest in the context of ample inventories.

·         According to the Index, international prices in the first two months of 2019 were 1.1 percent below their levels in the corresponding period of 2018.