The Green Trade Company – a state-owned enterprise under the Ministry of Commerce – and the Cambodian Rice Federation have issued a joint statement allaying public concerns about food security, affirming that there is currently no shortage of milled rice in the country.
The affirmation came as some traders have reportedly inflated the prices of milled rice as frantic consumers vie to stock up on the commodity amid the lockdown of Phnom Penh and adjacent Kandal provincial town Takmao.
The joint statement was released on April 15, a day after the government imposed the two-week lockdown, effective through April 28, in a bid to contain the ongoing community outbreak of Covid-19.
In the joint statement, they said Cambodia has sufficient stockpile of milled rice, with more than 2.5 million hectares of wet paddy having been harvested in January and nearly one million hectares of dry paddy, of which more than 90 per cent has been harvested.
They said the supplies could readily fulfill domestic demands and sufficient enough to even be exported abroad until the next harvest seasons.
In the statement, they said the milled rice stocks they have released for sale at base prices are available in various locations from the city centre down to the suburbs.
