Her comments come as Vietnam reviews its rice export capacity for this year amid calls from exporters to raise the limit.
"The most reasonable export volume is 3.8 million tonnes to 3.9 million tonnes," Pham Thai Touch, deputy head of the agriculture ministry's planning department, was quoted as saying in a Saigon Gaily Phong (Liberation Saigon) daily interview.
"We will produce 34.8 million tonnes of paddy in 2004, fulfilling the target. Having reckoned sufficiently for national food security, husbandry, reserves, seedlings and losses, (we think) it's still possible to export 4 million tonnes," she said.
Vietnam, the world's second-largest exporter of rice after Thailand, produced 34.67 million tonnes of rice and exported 3.82 million tonnes of husked rice last year. It has set an export limit of 3.5 million tonnes of the grain for this year.
But Deputy Prime Minister Vu Kohan has called on the agriculture ministry to report by August 31 on Vietnam's expected rice production and consumption this year to determine if the country's export potential.
The Vietnam Food Association said exporters have signed up to ship the entire current export quota of 3.5 million tonnes and had sought government permission to raise total shipments to at least 3.7 million tonnes.
On Thursday the government estimated rice exports in the first eight months of this year would be 1 percent higher than the same year earlier period at nearly 3 million tonnes.
"If we export 3.8 to 3.9 million tonnes, we still have 1.5 to 1.7 million tonnes saved for reserves," said Touch, who is also in charge of grain exports at the agriculture ministry.
She said food security had become less of an issue for Vietnam, noting, "We did not have to import food in the past more than 10 years."
Rice traders said Vietnam would benefit from higher prices by the end of the year if the government lifted the ceiling on rice exports, given large demand from the Philippines, Malaysia, Iraq and Africa.
The government is expected to make a decision on rice exports in September.