A 144-tonne shipment of Cambodian fragrant rice will leave Phnom Penh for Fuzhou, China on Saturday, the first Chinese order for the Kingdom’s milled rice after a recent government agreement was reached on Chinese regulation.

Mekong Oryza Trading received the order months earlier, senior manager of business development David Van said yesterday in an email.

“We waited [to announce the order] until both governments agreed on a format on paperwork as we didn’t want to get caught with cargo stuck at Chinese entry ports,” Van said.

He declined to name the Chinese buyer.

Reported regulatory issues have held back Cambodian rice shipments to China for more than a year, experts have said, some of whom maintained that the problem was Chinese red tape, not rice quality.

Rice millers have collected a stack of memoranda of understanding but the pseudo-agreements failed to translate into real trade.

Mega Green Imex Cambodia last week said the company would ship a test run of 240 tonnes of rice to China by the end of June.

Golden Rice president Sok Hach said his company sent a 48-tonne test run earlier in the year but failed to pass regulatory tests in the southern Chinese port of Shenzhen.

The China Certification & Inspection Group will inspect the rice at Cavifood rice mill in the capital’s Russei Keo district tomorrow before it leaves Phnom Penh Autonomous Port two days later, Van said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Don Weinland at [email protected]