The world’s second-largest exporter of rice on Wednesday dashed hopes of a significant reduction in prices of the grain in the short term when Vietnam imposed a minimum export price of $800 a tonne for new contracts.

The minimum export price came as Hanoi on Wednesday lifted a ban on the signing of new export contracts that was imposed earlier this year. However, it said that it would only allow limited sales and reiterated a limit of 3.5m tonnes of exports for the first nine months of the year.