Thursday, December 04, 2008

Cambodian rice production up, eyes exports

Wednesday, December 03, 2008
Trade Arabia (Bahrain)

Cambodia is all set to play a big role in the global rice market with a surplus crop helping the country ship at least 2 million tonne.

Media reports said Cambodia’s production of unmilled rice has increased 12 per cent this year, which would create a surplus of 2.8 million tonnes in 2008, up 300,000 tonnes over last year’s figures, according to Commodity Online.

The country also hopes that the quantity of rice production will continue to increase next year.

The Cambodian government expects total production of unmilled rice to hit 6.8 million tonnes, which would represent a million-tonne gain over last year.

Cambodia is negotiating with several countries to secure additional markets for Cambodian rice.

The country will export at least 2 million tonnes of rice in 2009 to countries in the region, in the Middle East, the European Union and in Africa.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

it's good to search or look beyond the borders of cambodia to the huge world out there.

Anonymous said...

it may be a sign that cambodia had overcame and is not in a survival mode any longer. so, perhaps, it is time for business to look for other ways to export,sale or convert some of of the surplus for other usage. for example, fish can be made into sardine or other canned goods, rice can be turned into flour and other food product, the abundant tropical fruits of cambodia can be made into healthy or dried food products to be exported to the USA and other countries. whole foods, trader joe's, henry's, etc in the USA are chained supermarket that especialized in organic food items or product, so i hope cambodia gov't can talk with the USA about exporting some of these cambodian surpluses to these markets. i mean, there are tones of places and ideas out there that cambodian fruits and other food items can be exported as there are a lot of demands out there. it might have to take gov't to gov't diplomatic talk to do this, though. plus, i have the feeling that these supermarkets in the USA probably have no idea that cambodia is a good country to get their organic foods like fruits, organic rice, fish, etc... just brainstorming.