In order to meet the world’s good quality of milled rice and sell it for higher prices exporting from Cambodia to overseas, the Cambodian Rice Millers Association (CRMA) plans to purchase a machine worth more than US$ 100,000 from South Korea, which enables farmers to sort rice by grade in Battambang province, the Phnom Penh Post reported.

Phou Puy, the president of Association, was quoted by the Post as saying that “we have seen that our rice output is increasing each year, but we still don’t have the machine to classify the grade of milled rice,” adding that “once we have the machine, it will be easier to access export markets.”

Milled rice have not been exported to overseas markets because of problems with quality control, and traditional, disorderly markets, where Cambodian farmers have decided to sell paddy rice to Vietnam, remain. It is expected that in 2010 Cambodia will have great potential to export good quality rice to international markets such as European market.

Harvesting more than 7 million tonnes of rice paddy was made on approximately 2.4 million hectares of farmland last year. There are surpluses of more than 2 million tonnes of rice paddy intended for export.

The absence of a sorting machine in Cambodia was one factor driving down the price of Cambodian rice on export markets, which tends to be lower than the prices paid for rice from Vietnam and Thailand, the Post reported.

“It is necessary for us to import the machine if we want to export milled rice to rich or European countries, which requires high-quality milled rice, Yang Saing Koma said, quoting by the Post as saying.

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