Myanmar set to temporarily curtail rice exports in coming two months

The rice shipment will be slowed down in two months, U Ye Min Aung, President of the Myanmar Rice Federation recently told The Global New Light of Myanmar (GNLM).
“It is just in early discussion. We are trying to stabilize the rice prices locally. We have already talked about it to reduce the rice shipment process in September and October. But we are still discussing. We have not finished in policy-related matters. There is food security. The main point is to urge the hoarders to make pending. It is to raise the prices which means luring those make storage with an export scheme. If we reduce the export, there will be a large volume of cooking oil and rice from hoarders. We will reduce rice export volume in coming September and October,” he said.
India’s government stopped exporting non-basmati white rice to help lower rice prices. Currently, the rice prices of Thailand and Viet Nam become higher in the global market.
The MRF is expected to export 2.5 million tonnes of rice and broken rice and to earn US$1 billion in the 2023-2024 financial year.
Currently, Myanmar’s rice export was down 56 per cent in the last four months. The country exported 320,000 tonnes of rice and earned only US$138 million between April and July of this year while it received over US$800 million from rice and broken rice exports last financial year. MRF’s data indicated that Myanmar’s rice is exported to China, EU member states and the Philippines.
“The countries that purchase Myanmar’s rice are EU member states that buy 30-40 per cent while China about 30 per cent and the Philippines 25-20 per cent,” said the MRF president. — TC/KTZH