Myanmar Rice exports falter on illicit China trade

Rice exports this year are set to fall to less than half of the government target of 3 million-tonnes as traders are withholding stock from its trading partners in an attempt to secure more favourable prices being offered by illicit Chinese importers, officials said.

U Lu Maw Myint Maung, joint secretary general of the Myanmar Rice Federation, told The Myanmar Times, that Myanmar exported nearly 1 million tonnes of rice through the first nine months of the fiscal year at the end of January, falling short of the 1.01 million tonnes of rice exported during the same period last year.

“Because of an unstable local rice price, we have not been able to speed up exports during the rainy season, he said. “If we had, Myanmar would probably have been able to export about 2 million tonnes this year, because there is enough reserve.”

He said that traders are increasingly looking to sell rice through Shan State’s Muse border, alongside China’s Yunnan Province, where they can earn as much as 28 percent more profit by dealing with tax-dodging Chinese

importers.

Though there is nothing illicit about local rice sellers trading over the borders, many Chinese traders are subject to a 17pc import tax on all rice bought from Myanmar, a tax many choose not to pay, he said. While they are then able to offer a better premium on imports, they also tend to not honour contacts and pay significantly less than promised.

“Local traders would not easily be able to reclaim their rice back because of the high transportation charges and would have to sell at the lower price,” U Lu Maw Myint Maung said. “This led to fluctuations in the local price, so that big exporters could not draw up contracts for as much as we

wanted.”

He said that the price of 25pc broken rice on the international market goes for US$315-$320 per tonne. That is compared to the 2480 yuan ($404) the same rice is sometimes sold for through the Muse border. Five percent broken rice, meanwhile, is sold for $405-$415 per tonne in the international markets, well short of the 2740 Yuan (about $446) per tonne it fetches along the Yunnan border.

In an effort to deal with the problem, the government has been in talks with Chinese authorities to try and formalise the rice trade, U Maung Aung, an adviser to the Ministry of Commerce he told The Myanmar Times.

“We have been trying to sign an MOU [memorandum of understanding] with regional governments in China to permit importing rice from Myanmar legally,” he said.

“Although they have not permitted rice imports, market demand is very big, so they seize illicit rice imports from Myanmar only sometimes,” he said.

As a result, experts believe that the price being offered by illicit traders in China would likely not begin to decrease until the end of the high trading season.

“The price [of rice exported to China] is not likely to go down until March as we are now exporting 3000 to 3500 tonnes of rice through Muse a day,” said U Thauk Kyar, an executive member of the Muse rice traders’ association.

The fiscal 2012-2013 total of 1.6 million tonnes was the highest in 46 years, thanks to the demand from China for exports via the newly booming Muse border post, which accounted for 60pc of the total 1.6 million tonnes exported last year, said U Lu Maw Myint Maung, adding that China has faced in increased demand for quality rice over the past year.

However, with Myanmar’s entry into the EU generalised system of preferences last year, Myanmar traders have started to export to Europe, said U Lu Maw Myint Maung.

“EU traders can import rice from Myanmar without paying import taxes if they can prove the country of origin,” he said.

Former joint secretary of the Myanmar Rice Federation and rice exporter U Myo Thura Aye said that 10 EU countries, including Spain, Portugal, Belgium and the Netherlands, are now buying rice from Myanmar.

“We’re exporting 5000 tonnes a month to Europe and 20,000 tonnes to Africa,” he said, adding that a smaller amount is going to the Philippines and Malaysia.

In addition, Myanmar Agribusiness Public Corporation (MACPO) announced last week that come May they will export up to 8000 tonnes of rice to Japan this year, said U Soe Tun, the company’s director.

“MAPCO is going to export … rice to Japan jointly with Japanese firm Mitsui & Co after it won a tender of Japanese government to import rice,” he said, adding that they would start importing 5pc broken rice at $470 per tonne.





By Zaw Htike