Million-tonne goal still a challenge

It has been more than two years since the Cambodian government issued a rice export policy in June 2010, aiming to export a million tonnes of milled rice by 2015. However, a shortage of capital to buy unmilled rice, known as “paddy”, together with high electricity and transportation costs, still challenge the government in achieving that goal. Cambodia’s Commerce Minister, Cham Prasidh, said at the national assembly on rice policy in August that it required between US$700 million and $1 billion a year to buy the paddy-rice surplus from the farmers and prepare the milled rice for export. He said some paddy-rice surplus had been illegally exported to Thailand and Vietnam for milling, causing Cambodia to lose out on the work being done in-country.  … Cambodia’s exports of milled rice dropped about 35 per cent in the first half of this year to 78,000 tonnes, compared with 120,000 tonnes during the corresponding period of 2011, according to the Ministry of Agriculture. Data from the agriculture, forestry and fisheries ministry shows that in 2011, Cambodia could produce about 7.8 million tonnes of paddy rice and with a surplus of 4.34 million tonnes of paddy rice, which is equal to 2.78 million tonnes of milled rice.

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