By APD writer Kin Ratha

PHNOM PENH, Nov. 14 (APD) -The Kingdom’s total Rice Export continued to fall about 13 percent in the first ten months of 2018 while China is still the main market, according to a report from the Secretariat of One Window Service for Rice Export.

In the first ten months (January-October) of 2018, Cambodia exported 434,807 tonnes of rice, compared to 492,115 tonnes over the same period of 2017, down by 13.20 percent.

Meanwhile, the rice most importing countries from Cambodia are China with 110,000 tons, France with 60,000 tonnes and Malaysia with 30,000 tonnes.

A representative of Cambodia Rice Federation, said the decrease was mainly causing by the high production costs while the budget is still constrain that make millers don’t have enough fund to purchase more rice to store in warehouses for processing to export.

“Our country is producing a lot of paddy rice but the budget is still constrain for us to buy from farmers to keep stock for processing,” It does not mean we lack of rice, but the thing is I mentioned the above challenges,” said the representative.

“We need precise mechanisms and we need to cooperate each other with the stakeholders to make our milled rice exports stable,” Mr Lak said.

According to figures from the Ministry of Agriculture, Cambodia exported 389,264 tonnes of rice in the first nine months of 2018, a drop of 8.4 percent. China continues to be Cambodia’s top export market.

(ASIA PACIFIC DAILY)