CHINESE agricultural company Sino Grain was in Phnom Penh this week, researching the possibility of importing Cambodian milled rice, according to a ministry statement.

Minister of Commerce Cham Prasidh hosted the company’s director general, Xu Ge Fei, and other Sino Grain delegates yesterday, the ministry said.

“With a population of 100 million, Guangdong requires 1 million tonnes of milled rice per month. So food demand is very high, and requires importing for supply and stock,” Xu Ge Fei was quoted as saying in the statement.

Sino Grain, along with its three branches in Beijing and Hunan and Guangdong provinces, supplies food to the Chinese government, and uses trade to maintain food price stability, the ministry said.

Xu Ge Fei said his company can mill 220,000 tonnes of rice per year, and had facilities enough to hold 1 million tonnes.

Cham Prasidh encouraged the company to invest in Cambodia by not only importing rice, but also by building a rice-processing plant here, the ministry said. Typically, Cambodia’s milled rice is exported to

China via Vietnam and Thailand.

Cambodia’s SOMA Group in June signed a cooperative memorandum of understanding with China’s Yunnan Provincial Overseas Investment Co to build a rice-processin

g mill facility in Cambodia.

Cambodia’s rice export volumes more than quadrupled in the first half of 2011 to 80,442 tonnes, worth $45.7 million, year-on-year, according to the Commerce  Ministry.