Vietnam is most likely to boost its rice exports to Ivory Coast in the coming years mainly due to growing demand and taste for Vietnamese rice in the African Nation.

In the first 11 months of 2006, Vietnam shipped 213,000 MT of rice worth US$53 million to the African country that imported a total of 900,000 MT last year.

Vietnam, which is the world's second largest rice exporter after Thailand has shipped abroad 2.3 million MT of rice worth over $731 million in the first half of 2007, year-on-year decreases of 9 per cent in volume and 5.6 per cent in turnover.