* Vietnam's 5 percent broken rice falls to $380-$390/tonne
* Ships taking a week to unload, versus 3 days earlier-trader
* Estimated 300,000 tonnes rice stuck on ships around Haiphong
By Ho Binh Minh
HANOI, April 8 (Reuters) - The movement of rice from Vietnam to China slowed over the past week as authorities in the Southeast Asian country cracked down on overloaded trucks, leading to a pile-up in grain supplies and softer prices, traders and a media report said.
The nationwide crackdown was launched on April 1 by the Transport Ministry-run Directorate for Roads of Vietnam, with inspectors checking the weight of all trucks to prevent overloading, accidents and to help maintain road quality.
"Rice cannot be moved faster as trucks are targeted now and Vietnam rice prices have therefore softened," a trader at a foreign company in Ho Chi Minh City said. He did not want to be identified by name as he was not allowed to talk to the media.
Another trader in the city said: "It usually takes three days to unload a rice ship, while now it takes the whole week."
Demand from China had helped keep Vietnamese rice prices stable in the past month even as a major harvest in the Mekong Delta peaked in late March and boosted supply.
But the price of 5 percent broken rice from Vietnam, the world's No.2 rice exporter after India, eased this week to $380-$390 a tonne, free-on-board, from $385-$393 last week.
Many transport firms and private truck drivers, who usually overload their trucks, have slashed their volumes by half after the checks started and are now seeking to counter this by doubling transportation costs, traders said.
This has hit rice movement across the land border to China, one of the top buyers of Vietnamese rice, they added.
An estimated 300,000 tonnes of rice was stuck on ships docked around the northern port of Haiphong, the port authority was quoted by the Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper as saying, which is more than a fifth of the country's total exports of 1.34 million tonnes in the first quarter.
The Haiphong port, some 100 km southeast of Hanoi, is the main destination for rice from the Mekong Delta food basket in the country's south. The grain is then loaded onto trucks and moved to China by land.
The strict checks on overloaded trucks have not hurt the volume of rice being shipped directly to China from Vietnam, traders said.
Vietnam's rice sold to China across the land border often involves cash payments and has no strict invoicing requirement.
Industry officials estimated 1.2 million tonnes was sold to China across the land border in 2013, compared with the country's 6.7 million tonnes exported via official channels.
The market is now waiting for the outcome of the Philippines' April 15 tender to buy 800,000 tonnes of rice for more trading cues.
(Editing by Himani Sarkar)
((ho.minh@thomsonreuters.com)(+844 3825 9623)(Reuters Messaging: ho.minh.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))
Keywords: VIETNAM TRANSPORT/RICE
