Rice is by far the most important staple food in the Vietnamese diet, and it is consumed in nearly all households (99.9 percent). In fact, rice is satisfying about 75 percent of the total calorific intake of a typical Vietnamese household.25 Therefore, the continuing increase in per capita rice production in the 1990s has contributed to increased food security (Minot and Goletti 2000). What is more, to ensure an adequate domestic supply of rice the Vietnamese government levied rice export quotas during this time equivalent to an export tax of 20 to 25 percent.26
As reforms stabilized the economy, rice prices have become less volatile and have substantially increased during the 1990s, directly impacting Vietnamese households—72 percent of which both