Located in Asia, the Philippines is the 8th largest producer of rice in the world and accounts for 2.8% of the total rice production worldwide. Rice is produced extensively in Luzon, the Western Visayas, Southern Mindanao and Central Mindanao region and plays a crucial role in the country’s food supply and economy.
However, despite being the 8th largest rice producer in the world, the Philippines imports huge volumes of rice to meet its domestic needs. It imports rice majorly from Vietnam. However, Vietnam after procuring unprocessed rice from Cambodia processes it and supplies the same to the Philippines, and this year the Philippines is eyeing to import unprocessed rice directly from Cambodia so that the companies from the Philippines can process it directly on the domestic soil.
Why Does Cambodia Imports Rice?
The Philippines-the Asian nation is among the top 10 rice-producing countries of the world. Despite this, the country relies on rice imports for its domestic consumption. The reason being, the Philippines is a nation of islands and unlike Thailand and Vietnam, the country does not have any major river deltas that supports rice production.
This explains the reason why countries located on the Southeast Asian mainland like Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Myanmar are conventional Rice Exporters while countries which are like island or narrow peninsula like Indonesia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Japan, Korea and Malaysia are constant rice importers.
Public Reaction
As soon as the news that the Philippines is mulling ways to import unprocessed rice from Cambodia broke into the market, professionals who would be blessed if this comes true welcomed it with open hands. The founder of Go Negosyo, the advocacy of the Philippine Center for Entrepreneurship (PCE) said that the Cambodian businessmen were very accommodative in this regard and even went the extra mile to offer exchange of technology to help the Philippines with its rice production.
With the recent happenings, agriculture in particular, emerged out as a promising area of cooperation between the two countries and as Cambodia is capable of producing high quality rice, the Philippines can learn from them through mutual cooperation and coordination.
The Bottom Line
Despite being in the list of top 10 rice exporting nations in the world, the Philippines imports rice for its domestic needs. It’s neighbor, Cambodia is a major rice producer and exporter and exports unprocessed rice to Vietnam which is further processed there and then exported to the Philippines.
However, this year, the Philippines is thinking to import unprocessed rice directly from Cambodia and process it on domestic soil for the first time.
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