Cambodia says Bangladesh keen on annual rice deals

PHNOM PENH Jan 10 (Reuters) - Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said on Monday that Bangladesh had offered to buy 200,000 tonnes of rice a year and that talks were resuming on exporting grain to Guinea.

Speaking at a university graduation ceremony in the capital, Phnom Penh, Hun Sen said talks were also continuing with the Philippines and Malaysia over rice exports.

"I agreed to sell rice and send experts to Guinea but it was stopped by the coup d'etat there," Hun Sen said. "Now we want to resume."

The West African state held elections in November after almost two years of military rule and a government is being put in place.

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.