APD | China ranked at the top of importers of Cambodia’s rice

By APD writer Kin Ratha

PHNOM PENH, April 10 (APD) - China was the biggest destination of Cambodia’s milled rice this year replacing the European Market which used to be the main market for the country. 

According to the data from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, the country’s total export in Q1 was 170,821 tons from 161,115 tons in the first quarter last year—an increase of more than 6 per cent. 

An industrial player said that Asian market has been absorbing a lot of the country’s milled rice over the period of time but saying that there were some declined at the European market.

“Since the country got a new quota for this year for Chinese market, we got a lot of demand there—that’s a good sign for our market because we got decline at European market,” said the source. In late January, Chinese government agreed to increase the quota to 400,000 tonnes for 2019, up from last year’s 300,000 tonnes while Vietnamese government in February also agreed to extend its quota for Cambodian rice to 300,000 tonnes per annum.

In Mid-January, the European Commission imposed tariff on rice coming from Cambodia and Myanmar by implementing the safeguard measures—by pointing out a significant increase of imports of Indica rice from Cambodia and Myanmar into the European Union caused economic damage to the EU producers.

According to the Commission’s decision, The EU imposed tariffs over the next three years: 175 euros ($199.5) per ton during the first year, 150 euros ($171) in the second year, and 125 euros ($142.5) in the last.

Last year, Cambodia exported 626,225 tonnes of rice to international markets, a drop of 1.5 percent compared to 2017.The largest market for Cambodian rice continues to be the EU, which imported almost 270,000 tonnes, equivalent to 42.98 percent of total exports.

(ASIA PACIFIC DAILY)