By Im Navin
Cambodge Soir Hebdo
Translated from French by Tola Ek
Click here to read the article in French
Since July 2008, tension between the two countries led to a drop in the sale of Cambodian agricultural produce to Thailand. All the provinces bordering Thailand are affected.
When reached over the phone, Heng Bonhor, the director of the Banteay Meanchey province Department of Agriculture, confirmed the stop of export to Thailand. “Farmers are producing rice and potatoes mainly which, under normal circumstances, they would sell everyday to Thai people. However, the latter are no longer buying them. This leads to financial problems among our farmers because a lot of them resorted to micro-credit (loans) to produce their crop. They can no longer pay back the lending institutions.”
He added also that in his province, 30,000-hectare produce 25 tons of potatoes per hectare per year. All these potatoes were geared for export to Thailand. Regarding rice, 4,000 tons are exported out daily during harvest season. “I informed the ministry of Agriculture about these problems because we cannot solve them at the provincial level. This is not the first time that we have this kind of problem with our Thai neighbors.”
Chhim Vichara, the deputy director of the Battambang province Department of Agriculture, faces the same problem. While he was not able to provide the exact number, he nevertheless underscored that in his province, several producers have exclusive contracts with Thai buyers therefore, establishing statistics is a difficult task. “All Thai buyers have stopped their activities, except those who have contracts with producers. In Battambang, the situation is most likely better than in other provinces, because there are exports to Vietnam.”
According to Heng Bonhor, the stop of the purchases is attributed to the behavior of Thai consumers who, following the declarations issued by their government, purchase Thai products as their priority. “The market for Cambodian agricultural produces is uncertain, each year, there could be problems. One kilo of potato is sold at 100 riels ($0.025) this year, whereas it was 2,000 riels ($0.50) last year. The price of rice drops from 1,000 ($0.25) to 600 riels ($0.15) per kilo this year.” He also indicated that each year, the government invests in rice husk-removal equipment so that rice paddy can be processed locally rather than being sold at low cost to Thailand or Vietnam. “However, we don’t have sufficient financial means to eradicate this issue,” he concluded.
When reached over the phone, Heng Bonhor, the director of the Banteay Meanchey province Department of Agriculture, confirmed the stop of export to Thailand. “Farmers are producing rice and potatoes mainly which, under normal circumstances, they would sell everyday to Thai people. However, the latter are no longer buying them. This leads to financial problems among our farmers because a lot of them resorted to micro-credit (loans) to produce their crop. They can no longer pay back the lending institutions.”
He added also that in his province, 30,000-hectare produce 25 tons of potatoes per hectare per year. All these potatoes were geared for export to Thailand. Regarding rice, 4,000 tons are exported out daily during harvest season. “I informed the ministry of Agriculture about these problems because we cannot solve them at the provincial level. This is not the first time that we have this kind of problem with our Thai neighbors.”
Chhim Vichara, the deputy director of the Battambang province Department of Agriculture, faces the same problem. While he was not able to provide the exact number, he nevertheless underscored that in his province, several producers have exclusive contracts with Thai buyers therefore, establishing statistics is a difficult task. “All Thai buyers have stopped their activities, except those who have contracts with producers. In Battambang, the situation is most likely better than in other provinces, because there are exports to Vietnam.”
According to Heng Bonhor, the stop of the purchases is attributed to the behavior of Thai consumers who, following the declarations issued by their government, purchase Thai products as their priority. “The market for Cambodian agricultural produces is uncertain, each year, there could be problems. One kilo of potato is sold at 100 riels ($0.025) this year, whereas it was 2,000 riels ($0.50) last year. The price of rice drops from 1,000 ($0.25) to 600 riels ($0.15) per kilo this year.” He also indicated that each year, the government invests in rice husk-removal equipment so that rice paddy can be processed locally rather than being sold at low cost to Thailand or Vietnam. “However, we don’t have sufficient financial means to eradicate this issue,” he concluded.
10 comments:
everything the thai does was so discriminated against cambodia. they are only hurting the friendship with khmer people evrytime they do something so stupid and bias like this against the innocent khmer people along the borders. then, they wonder why we, khmer people, hated them so much. they are so one-way or one-sidedness; it's called bias against cambodia and its people, not a good way to build good friendship with us!
That’s the main issue for Cambodians. Chimpanzee regime should invest or build rice milling factories. When people have access to local processing, they don’t need to depend on Thai/Viet any more. It is more advantage to the people.
Why they are so ignorant and depending too much on Thai/Viet as consumers? Don't blame on the neighbors. It's all Ah Kwack's fault.
Wondering why he still Kwack nowadays.
Khmer government should buy these product, feed the army and hungry Khmer. And the farmers have the money to spend, buy agriculture raw material for the next planting, and circulate the money for nation economy. No need to depend on Thai products. Better stop buy Thai products for they are stop buy our farming product. They are doing it, what are Khmer waiting for?
AH HUN SEN is to slow to find the world market for Cambodian agriculture products! Why continue to make Cambodian farmers depend on the Siam and the Viet to sell their agriculture products?
All these agriculture products can be turn into ethanol to power cars and trucks! Get on with it and this is economic war!
If the Thai wants to boycott Khmer products, Khmer should stop buying Thai product. Thai export their product to Cambodia more than we do. But, Khmer people are stupid to keep buying their product. Khmer Hun Sen is dumb not to find the market for Khmer people. They only find money for their pocket. If Khmer continues to be dumb like this, we'll be run over by Hanoi and Siem sooner or later.
See for yourself presently what Hanoi has been doing to Khmer people in our land and Khmer Kampuchea Krom. Don't count on people who thinks their master Hun Sen is the best. These people are Hanoi agents. Real Khmer won't like Hanoi and Siem, only the fake Khmers like them.
Don't expect the west help you out of tiger mouth. Help yourself and sacrifice yourself for the better future of Cambodia. People power will topple this regime once for all.
What's the heck! Just boxed it up and ship to America. Khmer oversea is ready and waiting to buy the goods.
Khmer4Ever!
Cambodia should not look/depend on trading with Thailand or Vietname. They in turn should be able to find new way to trade with other nations with out the need of going to thiid party country like Thailand or Vietname to export their produces.
The CPP has NOT been been doing any work to try and resolve these issue. I see many products FROM Cambodia that have sign and sticker from Cambodia like the picture of Angkor Wat but IT HAS A MADE IN THAILAND OR VIETNAM LABEL. This is so embarassing for me as Khmer, and what even more embarassing is the CPP GOVERNMENt are NOT ABLE to RESOLVE this issues since they came into power.
There are so many opportunities for Khmer to export if they do it themselve and not use Thailand or Vietname as platform.
So Ah Hun Sen can you fix this?
Don't listen to Pouk Ah Scam Rainxy and his potato diggers, unless you want to suffer big time.
hey, we listen for ideas to help solve the problem, not threat because nowadays, people can get sued for unlawful threat or instill fear! please respect the rule of law by education. thank you.
I personal trade with Thais; whole grain rice and potatoes.. We farm our own potatoes but buy whle grain rice from local farmers in our area (thmor puok). Whole grain rice price that we export to Thailand has drop about 10% from last year; last year price was on average 11.5baht per 1kilo but this year it is about 10.3baht per kilo. On the contrary potatoe price has increase more than 100% at the beginning of the year it was about 1.2baht per kilo now it about 2.8baht per kilo; these prices are what my companies receive exporting to Thailand.. Thais buyers are very trickly they can give whatever price they want to... They can say rice is 11.5baht per kilo but once we exported to them, they process the whole grain rice and say that it is not good quality and then they ended up lowering the price to 10.5 baht per kilo... We had no choice but to sell because of freight cost and all other misc. cost that incurred... Our company exports close to 100ton of whole grain rice and over 100ton of potatoes daily to Thai buyers. This year whle grain rice bussiness is very weak; a lot of new exporters ended up stop exporting due to no profit or od negative returns.. Thais buyers usually don't pay in full after receiving our product but we always do when we purchase whole grain rcie or potatoes from local farmers which make our cash outlfow greater than our cash inflow resulting shortage on cash and productivity lowered greatly.. Thais buyers of potatoes andwhole grain rice really shun our products and since they know Cambodia depends on them for exporting our agricultural goods due to our financial issues, they priced what price they want and in the end we profit only pennies to the dollars... Doing business with Thailand or Vietnam will make our country industrialize slower and will never catch up to neighboring countries. But we really have no choice but to do business with them because we lack leadership and our government don't give a shit about our farmers and businesses... And I really haveno choice but to do business with the Thais buyers because they are my only closest and cheaper resource for all my exporting product... Our government needs to change... I know that roads are being build due to foreign dollars but it is taking forever... Cambodia will need another century to catch up with neighborig nations... But I hope that our governments will have different perspective on how a country should be run and I hope that Hun Sen will bring more resources to our country so that we have ways of exporting our goods........will continue next time....
Post a Comment