SAN JUAN: The Guyana Rice Development Board reported a 6 percent increase in rice exports between January and October in comparison with the same period last year, despite the loss of the key market of Venezuela.
Hassan said that Guyana exported 437,448 metric tons of milled rice in the first 10 months of this year, up from 412,228 metric tons in January-October 2014, GRDB General Manager Nizam Hassan told EFE on Friday.
Despite the rise in exports, earnings have not changed significantly because main importer Venezuela renounced the trade agreement and Guyanese millers are now receiving world market prices, which are lower than what Caracas paid.
“Venezuela stopped taking our rice when production would have already started and gone, sometime in June, and farmers had already expended money on land preparation, etc … so our current costs of production are higher in terms of what the price for rice and rice products are on the world market,” the GRDB general manager said.
Venezuela formally notified Guyana last year that it would no longer be buying rice, but that fact did not become public until May, when a new Guyanese government took office.
Venezuela previously accounted for 37.5 percent of Guyana’s rice exports.
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