Cambodia Ink Export Deal With Senegal

The government of Cambodia has signed an agreement with Senegal enabling it to sell 120,000 MT of rice to Senegal in 2009 - the first time it will export rice to Africa since the 1960's.

According to Tes Ethda, president of the National Rice Millers Association of Cambodia (NRMAC), representing nine rice-producing provinces, the UN Development Program, Francophone countries, the international trade center and the Ministry of Commerce are encouraging NRMAC to export rice, in part to cut illegal rice exports, believed to amount to hundreds of thousand of MT a year.

Cambodia expects to have a surplus of 2.6 million MT of rice this year, up from about two million MT in 2007, according to the Ministry of Agriculture.