PHNOM PENH, Feb. 5 (Xinhua) -- Some 100 rice exporters and millers have jointly formed a Cambodian Rice Exporters Association in a bid to boost rice export, said the group's newly appointed president on Sunday.
"The aim of the establishment is to unite all rice exporters and millers in order to supply rice in large quantities to foreign buyers," said Lim Bunheng, who is also chairman of a leading rice exporter Loran Import-Export.
"With the association, we dare to sign contracts with foreign buyers in large amount purchase orders," he said, adding "the association will contribute to the government's scheme to export one million tons of milled rice by 2015."
The Cambodian Rice Exporters Association was officially launched on Feb. 2, he said.
Cambodia is an agrarian country. More than 80 percent of the population is farmers. In August, 2010, the government has launched the rice export promotion strategy, aiming at exporting one million tons of milled rice by 2015.
However, the country can export only the small amount of its milled rice due to the lack of sophisticated post-harvesting technology and capital.
It's estimated that the country needs roughly 350 million U.S. dollars to invest in hi-tech post harvest technology and to purchase paddy rice from farmers for processing to achieve its self-imposed target of one-million-ton rice exports by 2015.
According to the figures of the Commerce Ministry, Cambodia had exported 170,770 tons of milled rice last year, an increase of 22 percent, from 140,300 tons in a year earlier. With the exported volume, the country earned the total revenues of 104 million U.S. dollars in 2011, up 197 percent from 35 million U.S. dollars in 2010, it said.
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