Friday, 03 February 2012 12:18 Kyaw Kha
The agreement was signed at a ceremony in Rangoon on January 28. The meeting was attended by Deputy Minister for Commerce Dr. Pwint San and Indonesia's Ambassador to Burma, Sebastianus Sumarsono.
Indonesia has mainly relied on Thailand, Vietnam and India for rice imports, but in 2011 a severe flood damaged paddy fields in Thailand and Vietnam, causing Indonesia to buy Burmese rice, according to the MRIA.
“The rice to be exported to Indonesia is Elmahta Rice [25 points]. If the rice has 75 points, it’ll be good quality. Now the rice [25 points] is broken rice,” MRIA deputy chairman Sein Win Hlaing told Mizzima. Indonesia imports around 2 million tons of rice per year.
In 2011, the Burmese rice crop was damaged because of flooding in the Irrawaddy Region, Bago (Pegu) Region, Mon State and Arakan State, causing Burma’s production to decrease 10 percent, according to estimates by MRIA. Burma’s average rice production is 17 million tons a year.
MRIA said that Burma would give first priority to the local rice demand and the stability of local rice prices.
“If we don’t have a rice reserve for our country and have signed agreements with foreign countries to sell the rice, the rice price in the local market will increase sharply. So we will keep enough rice in reserve for our country’s need. Only after it’s sure that we have enough rice, would we export excess rice to foreign countries,” Sein Win Hlaing said.
MRIA and the Burmese government will cooperate to buy brown rice reserves from farmers at a price of 3,300 kyat (about US$ 4.50) per Burmese bushel of rice [40.91 liter]. In late January, the government allocated 10 billion kyat to buy brown rice for reserve.
Burma’s local demand for rice is 15 million tons per year, officials said. The current price of Pawsan Rice is 800 kyat per basket [0.26 liter], the same price as in 2011, according to rice shops in the Bayintnaung wholesale center.
Because of bad weather and insects, farmers have encountered difficulties this year. Farmers received agricultural loans from the Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings Limited at an interest rate of 2 percent, but because of bad weather and insects, paddy fields were damaged and many farmers could not repay their loans, said farmers in Dedaye Township.
“Paddy fields were spoiled by flood in the rainy season. Now paddy fields [under irrigation] were hit by heavy rain this winter like the previous year, and the quality of brown rice will be bad. Moreover, insects spoiled some rice crops. We will financially lose,” a farmer in Noutpyandoe Village told Mizzima.
Most Burmese rice is exported to west African countries. Bangladesh and the Philippines also import Burmese rice. In 2010, about 800,000 tons of Burmese rice was exported; in 2011, just 700,000 tons was exported, according to MRIA.
According to MRIA records, there are 20.43 million acres of paddy fields in Burma; 17.27 million acres are productive in the rainy season and 3.16 million acres are productive in the summer.
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