Agriculture ministry secretary of state Yang Saing Koma (right) visits a rice mill. Yang Saing Koma FB
Cambodia possesses an adequate number of rice mills capable of milling and meeting international export standards; however, they face a lack of capital to purchase rice grains for stocking and producing for export, according to a senior agriculture official.
Yang Saing Koma, secretary of state at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, said on December 26 that the rice sector currently has 240 medium and large mills, of which 130 have the capacity to grind and meet export standards.
He said the grinding centres have the capacity to process 1,200 tonnes per hour and dry more than 42,000 tonnes of rice per day.
According to Saing Koma, the facilities can maintain two million tonnes of rice per season, demonstrating the capacity and potential of mills in the country to grind, process and supply more than four million tonnes per year.
Nevertheless, he said they still face the challenge of running out of capital to maintain stocks.
“We have factories, warehouses and kilns for drying rice grains, which should suffice for the current situation. However, we are still lacking capital to stock rice grains, and finding ways to reduce our processing costs, especially for transportation, remains a challenge for us,” he said.
He noted that the state-run Agricultural and Rural Development Bank (ARDB) has already released a significant amount of funding for the sector.
Saign Koma added that the $100 million budget package the government is preparing to help procure agricultural products during the harvest season is set to be implemented in 2024.
Heng Pheng, a rice exporter and owner of a rice mill located in Battambang province’s Thma Koul district, mentioned that a few years ago, there was a shortage of warehouses and facilities for drying rice as farmers rushed to harvest, leading to very cheap sale prices.
He noted that the problem has largely been solved through loans from ARDB in recent years.
“Rice warehousing and drying are no longer issues, but the problem that farmers and traders are currently facing is rising production costs, such as for fuel and fertiliser. We need more capital during the harvest season to collect stockpiled rice for export. We are pleased with the government’s initiative of allocating a $100 million package to prepare for purchasing agricultural products from farmers,” he said.
Pheng noted that through the policy, mill owners could receive additional funding for stocking their product, thereby ensuring that more of the rice produced can remain in-country.
According to a ministry report, the Kingdom achieved export results of 2.52 million tonnes of rice grain and rice in the first 10 months of 2023, comprising more than 520,000 tonnes of rice and nearly 2 million tonnes of rice grain, worth more than $1.166 billion.
Nearly 530,000 tonnes of rice were exported during the period, an increase of over 4 per cent, while nearly two million tonnes of rice grain were shipped internationally, an increase of more than 21 per cent over the same period in 2022, as per the ministry.
