Cambodia promotes rice to international buyers

PHNOM PENH (Xinhua) -- Cambodia held the 4th rice forum on Tuesday with an aim to promote milled rice to local and international buyers, an organizer said.

Potential buyers from China, Singapore, Nigeria, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Iraq, South Africa, the United States, Italy, Poland, Germany, India, and Myanmar were invited for the event, said Te Taing Por, president of the Federation of Cambodian Associations for Small and Medium Enterprises.

"The conference was to promote Cambodian rice and to exchange experience on rice production and market among experts," he said at a press briefing after the forum.

He added that Cambodian fragrant rice is famous for its delicious flavor, and the rice was awarded the world's best rice for two consecutive years at the Global Rice Tasting Competitions held in Indonesia in 2012 and in China's Hong Kong in 2013.

With more than 80 percent of the population being farmers, Cambodia produced 9.4 million tonnes of paddy rice last year. With the amount, it has over 3 million tonnes of milled rice left over for exports this year.

In 2010, the country set its goal toward exporting one million tonnes of milled rice by 2015.

An official data showed that during the first nine months of this year, Cambodia exported 269,370 tonnes of milled rice, up only 1.2 percent compared to the same period last year.

Some 77 companies have brokered Cambodian rice for 57 countries and regions around the world.

France, Poland, Malaysia, the Netherlands and China are the main buyers.