Friday, June 20, 2008

Guinea to buy 120,000 tons of Cambodian rice

Thursday, 19 June 2008
The Mekong Times

Cambodia will export 120,000 tons of rice to Guinea in a bid to ease the West African nation’s food crisis, Prime Minister Hun Sen said yesterday.

At the inauguration of a bridge in Kampong Speu province, Hun Sen said Guinean Prime Minister Ahmed Tidiane Souaré has requested the rice. The premier assured that the amount will not stretch Cambodia’s stocks.

Hun Sen revealed that Cambodia will send agricultural experts to Guinea to assist in the development of new rice-growing techniques.

“We will send experts, even though we have to pay, because this is our international responsibility,” he said.

Guinea – with 6 million hectares – has a similar amount of farmland to Cambodia, the premier noted.

Cambodia, which last year had a rice surplus of some 2 million tons, lifted a ban on rice exports in May. Around 1.5 million tons of rice will be exported this year, the government has estimated.

Guinea is the second African country this year to ask for rice exports from Cambodia. Senegal bought 6,000 tons of low grade broken rice at the height of the global rice price crisis in late-April.

Hun Sen also commended the work of a Cambodian de-mining team which also workd for the past three yers in the war-torn African state of Sudan as part of the UN humanitarian operations. He said 500 more military staff are prepared to assist the UN.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Please go ahead to help other as we can.

Anonymous said...

It is good news for our farmers in term of rice export and expand market.

I just wondering of Hun Sen speech sending agriculture expert to Guinea. Do Cambodia have agriculture expert? If so why don't government employ those expert to help our farmer before sending them to oversea?

Cambodian farmer need expert to help them how to do agriculture properly, soil analysis, what kind of plant can grow in that soil, how to use chemical...and it would be great if our government can provide loan or capital to farmer, so that they will not sell out their land.

Anonymous said...

Hun Sen should not sell to much rice, because he has to keep the bulk of the stuck for the Vietcong and the Siam. So they can make profit on his head.