PHNOM PENH: Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said Thursday that the country failed to achieve its self-imposed target of exporting 1 million tons of milled rice by 2015 due to lack of milling capacity, storage facilities and funding.
The Southeast Asian nation set the target in 2010.
“So far this year, we had exported only half a million tons of milled rice, or about 50 percent of the target, so we cannot achieve the target of exporting 1 million tons of milled rice by 2015,” he said at a national conference.
Tough competition with other rice exporters such as Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar and India was also a contributing factor to the failure, he said.
Cambodia’s total rice production this year is estimated to exceed 9.2 million tons, according to preliminary estimates by the Ministry of Agriculture.
With this amount, the country will have over 3 million tons of milled rice left over for exports next year.
China, France, Poland, Malaysia, and the Netherlands are main buyers of Cambodia’s milled rice.
In 2014, Cambodia exported some 370,000 tons of milled rice, earning a gross revenue of 247 million U.S. dollars, according to the Ministry of Commerce.
