Labourers unload sacks of rice from a ship in Yangon on June 28/Photo: AFP
Mizzima
The junta wants to export $1 billion USD worth of rice in the coming 2024 to 2025 financial year, as it desperately tries to earn foreign currency.
Rice exports make up an important part of the junta’s exports earning it nearly half as much as oil and gas exports, which are worth over $2 billion USD a year.
The Myanmar Rice Federation (MRF) said that its target is to export nearly 2 million tonnes of rice for $1 billion USD in the 2024-25 financial year.
Rather than increasing output the MRF instead wants to increase the value of exports by concentrating on higher quality and higher value rice.
Myanmar usually exports 2.1 million tonnes of rice a year, but in the 2023 to 2024 financial year it has only, so far, managed to export just over a million tonnes for $700 million USD, making it the 8th largest exporter of rice worldwide for the year.
However, rice exports were down from September to December 2023 because the junta’s onerous foreign exchange rules made exporting rice unprofitable.
In the 2022 to 2023 financial year Myanmar exported 2.4 million tonnes of rice, making it the 5 largest exporter of rice worldwide for that year.
The main rice export market for Myanmar is the European Union (EU), followed by more local markets such as China, Indonesia and the Philippines.
Currently, the price of rice to consumers in Myanmar’s domestic market has risen to an unprecedented level due to the junta prioritising rice exports. Because of this exports for the rest of this financial year, which runs to April, will be reduced, in an attempt to stabilise the domestic market.
Due to the junta being put under international economic sanctions following the February 2021 coup it is facing a shortage of foreign currency which it needs to buy arms on the international market, so that it can continue its war of oppression against the Myanmar people.
