The Ministry of Commerce will negotiate with Chinese authorities to allow the official export of rice and maize to China through the border route and to get an annual export quota via the sea route, the ministry’s spokesperson said.
Negotiations will be made with China’s Central Economic Committee through the Myanmar ambassador in Beijing to get an annual export quota to export both agricultural products via border trade camps and shipping, an official of the ministry said.
It is technically illegal without specific permission to export rice, grain and other agricultural products from Myanmar into China, but until a recent crackdown the policy was widely ignored. With the recent enforcement of the export ban, the price of rice has plummeted and the surplus of rice in Myanmar has grown. The price of rice is likely to further decline if China, the world’s most populous nation, continues the crackdown, said the official, who added that the government of Yunnan Province seems to wish to buy Myanmar’s rice because of the cheaper price. The commerce ministry also has plans to extend the trade contract to export 300,000 tonnes of rice annually to Indonesia between 2016 and 2019. According to the official figures of the ministry, the country earned US$1.4 billion from the export of agricultural products between April and October7 this fiscal year.
Source: Global New Light of Myanmar
