Cambodia’s agricultural exports this year have reached 2.82 million tonnes as of March 16, surging by over 22 per cent or about 511,000 tonnes year-on-year.

These numbers were revealed by Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries director-general for Agriculture Ngin Chhay on March 18 at a press conference on the extent and effectiveness of utilisation of concessions under the bilateral free trade agreements (FTA) with China and South Korea, held at the Council of Ministers.

He listed the “important” agricultural products exported over the period as milled and paddy rice, cassava, cashew nuts, dried corn kernels, fresh bananas, mung beans, pomelos, fresh and dried mango, oil palm and peppercorn.

“While the growth of Cambodian agricultural exports to overseas markets has gained significant steam, there are still some major challenges in the implementation of sanitary and phytosanitary measures,” Chhay cautioned.

One such issue is a lack of supporting infrastructure for plant protection and phytosanitary research institutes and laboratories, and for the preservation and curation of scientific data, he said.

“Moreover, the infrastructure for cleaning, packaging and pest control does not yet meet the scale of production or exports,” he added.

Cambodia Rice Federation president Song Saran told The Post on March 20 that among Cambodia’s agricultural exports exported abroad, which had increased earlier this year, milled rice exports had increased significantly.

“In 2022, we will get more shipping containers into the EU than in 2021, but there are still challenges that we’re not yet well equipped to deal with, given the maritime transport situation.

“We expect that this year – at the pace we are going today – we’ll be able to increase our milled rice exports to 750,000 to 850,000 tonnes as planned,” he said. This would mark an increase over 2021 in the range of 21-38 per cent.

For full article, please read here

Author: Hom Phanet

Source: The Phnom Penh Post

Publication date: 21 March 2022