Wednesday, April 30, 2008

After Senegal, other African countries are eying Cambodia’s “broken rice”

28 April 2008
By Ka-set
Unofficial translation from French by Tola Ek

Click here to read the original article in French
Click here to read the original article in Khmer

African countries are eying Cambodia’s broken rice, Cham Prasidh, the minister of Commerce, declared on Monday 28 April 2008. During an official visit to Senegal last week, the authorities of this West African country had ordered 6,000 tons of broken rice. A delegation from Senegal would soon visit the kingdom to check the quality of the rice and to start negotiations, Cham Prasidh indicated.

“Today, we have an agreement with Senegal. Suddenly, its neighbor, Gambia, asks us also to provide broken rice! I told Gambia to wait so that we can evaluate the quantity of rice available for export.”

Since then, Cham Prasidh assured, phone calls from African countries kept on ringing him with the same request.

Broken rice, the residue from successive manipulations and sorting between broken and intact rice grains, is not what Cambodian people like. Thousands of tons of this rice are waiting for buyers, otherwise they will be use to feed animals, Cham Prasidh explained. Selling this broken rice (for export) will bring so much more (revenue).

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think that is a good start for Cambodia to be among the leading rice export in the world.

Anonymous said...

"Thousands of tons of this rice are waiting for buyers, otherwise they will be use to feed animals"

While this so called "broken rice" is being sold to meet the needs of other human beings it is morally wrong to mention that in the quote from above. Just don't mention it regardless of what it will be used for if no buyers ever want it.

Anonymous said...

9:13

I felt the same when I read this piece.

Anonymous said...

it's called freedom of the press, ladies and gentlemen! criticism ought be what's appropriate and what's inappropriate, not discouraging the freedom of speech. thank you.

Anonymous said...

What do you think people from Senegal and other African countries will react when they learn that we have such a comment about the rice we are going to sell to them? What would you react when Thai said that they were selling food that they would otherwise fed their animals with to us?

Anonymous said...

Do not cofuse freedome of speech and fool speech, Fool! that the stupid PHD from Hanoi!