Milled rice export to EU expected to increase

Milled rice export to EU expected to increase

Cambodia is in high hope of seeing the amount of milled rice export to the European Union increase after the import tariff on the country’s rice was revoked.

The EU market accounted for more than 50 percent of Cambodia’s total milled rice export in 2016 and this amount dropped sharply to around 20 percent last year, mainly due to the import tariff on Cambodia’s long-grain white rice.

High hopes to grain shares of rice export in the EU come as the bloc’s three-year temporary measure – import tariff came to an end on January 19.

Rice export to the EU will gradually increase from this year, said Song Saran, president of the Cambodia Rice Federation, a clan of rice millers and exporting companies, said yesterday.

The rice body encourages its members and farmers to produce fragrant rice and high-quality rice as import tariffs were removed in the EU, Saran said.

“We expect the milled rice export to the EU to increase, but it is not in a high pact of growth because we focus on export of fragrant rice and premium high-quality rice,” Saran said.

Cambodia would spend several years pushing the amount of milled rice to reach the amount of 300,000 tons registered in 2019, he said.

The EU imposed import tariffs under the safeguard scheme as a temporary measure to help protect farmers from competitively priced long-grain rice, with exporters in Cambodia and Myanmar having benefited from tariff-free status under the EU’s Everything But Arms (EBA) scheme.

Under the tariff, exporters are subject to pay $198 per metric tonne in the first year, $170 and $142 per metric tonne in the second and third year, respectively.

Figures from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries showed that Cambodia exports only some over 140,000 tonne to the EU while more than 300,000 tonne to China, the biggest market of Cambodia’s milled rice.

“We expect to see an increase by 10 percent and constantly in the same beat until the amount of rice export reaches about 25 to 300,000 tonne as before, and what we want is 300,000 tons per year export to the EU,” he said.

CRF plans to promote and guide farmers to produce fragrant rice and premium quality rice for export, rather than a lower price rice grain, Saran said, promoting in markets abroad is another task the CRF would take to promote the country’s rice name in international markets. Khmer Times