Japan, South Korea seek to buy more Myanmar rice
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Japan and South Korea are seeking to buy more rice from Myanmar this year, as the country races up the global list of rice-exporting nations, according to the Myanmar Farmers Association.
The association did not specify how much rice the countries were looking to buy. Myanmar exports primarily to Europe, Singapore and Australia and to China and Thailand via border trade.
“Now the government has allowed exports to India via border trade,” a rice trader said. “Moreover, Japan and South Korea want to buy Myanmar rice. The association didn’t announce when export would begin or how many tonnes would be exported,” the trader said.
Myanmar and Indonesia also plan to sign an agreement in March that will see 500,000 tonnes of rice exported to Indonesia, the farmers’ association’s chairman said.
Myanmar is expected to export 1.5 million tonnes of rice in fiscal year ending in March, the most in 46 years. In the previous fiscal year rice exports totalled slightly more than half this amount, or 790,000 tonnes.
If Myanmar exports 1.5 million tonnes this fiscal year it will jump from being the world’s ninth largest rice exporter to its fifth, overtaking Uruguay, Cambodia and Brazil, according to figures from the commerce ministry.
Executives from South Korea’s Samsung C and T Corp recently met with representatives from rice export companies to buy 70,000 tonnes of white rice, officials said.
