Cambodia Rice News: Cambodian rice millers seek to expand trade with EU

Cambodian rice millers seek to expand trade with EU

Cambodian rice millers have pledged to work harder to improve the capacity of their industry as they seek to expand to European Union market. They made the comments at a recent seminar held to discuss findings of the mission they had to five EU countries in September.

“We are determined to make Cambodia become a good partner in supplying rice to the EU market,” Mr. Thon Virak, Director General of Cambodian Green Trade Company, said at a workshop on 1st October.

More than 150 people from government institutions, private sector, and development partners attended the workshop which was held at Ministry of Commerce following a trade mission to Belgium, France, Netherlands, Germany and Poland on 12-24 September. The ministry’s representatives led the delegation of nine rice millers, one representative from a logistics company, one service provider from Small and Medium Industry Association of Cambodia (SMI Cambodia), and four government officials to explore opportunity for rice export to the EU.

The visit aimed to assist Cambodian rice millers in developing trading partnerships and gaining first-hand information about the rice milling technologies, qualities, and standards needed to enter the EU market.

During the visit they met with rice brokers, traders, processors and distributors. They also held talks with the Directorate General of Agriculture of the European Commission and a federation of European rice traders.

“Before the visit, we had not really an idea of what the market requires. Now, after seeing it with our own eyes and talking directly to the buyers, we know what the EU consumers want,” Norng Veasna, a rice miller from Kampong Cham, said.

Cambodia is among the least-developed countries that can benefit from tariff-free imports allowed by the EU under its Everything-but-Arms initiative. The delegation members said there was a strong interest among the European buyers in Cambodian rice. But they also took note of the high requirements on the quality standards of sanitation and food safety of the EU consumers.

“There are good potentials for Cambodian rice to access the EU market, but quality requirements are quite strict. This is the main challenge for our rice producers to address,” said Mr. Renne Outh, Secretary General of SMI Cambodia.

Last year, Cambodia exported 21,600 tons of milled rice to Europe, trailing behind its neighbours Thailand and Viet Nam. To become more competitive in quality and quantity, Cambodia needs to invest more in modernizing processing technology and improve trade facilitation by reducing cost of doing business, officials said at the workshop.

“The core factors for doing business with Europe are high quality of rice, trust and reliability which includes regularity of quantity supply and ability to meet delivery schedule,” Mr. Thon Virak said.

He added that early next year representatives of European buyers will visit Cambodia to sign a contract of 40,000 tonnes of milled rice annually – an amount almost twice as much the total country’s export to Europe in 2009.

The rice miller mission was proposed by the Trade Promotion Department (TPD) of MoC and prepared in close cooperation with the Rice Task Team under the Trade Sector-Wide Approach (Trade SWAp). Development partners Agence Francaise Developpement (AFD) and UNDP provided funding for the mission. Technical assistance before and during the visit to Europe was provided by German Technical Cooperation (GTZ).

Speaking on behalf of UNDP, Ms. Norng Ratana, a programme analyst on trade, said the harmonization among donors and public and private sectors is necessary to forge strategy for doing rice business with the EU.

“We can develop a good plan and set target to increase rice export, but without involvement of the private sector, it will be very difficult to implement such a plan. Private sector can be the producers, collectors, and distributors. They can also serve as the link between the buyers and farmers,” she said at the workshop.

Source: UN/12-October-2010

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