[PHNOM PENH POST]
A CANADIA Bank-owned rice mill will begin operations in Takeo province
during next year’s autumn harvest season, bringing 60,000 tonnes of
milling capacity to a market strained by a lack of processing power.
The
US$10 million project was part of an increase in financing for
agriculture, and specifically for rice milling, Canadia Bank chairman
Pung Kheav Se said yesterday at a cerem-ony for the bank’s 20th
anniversary.
In 2012, Canadia would increase agricultural loans
by more than 70 per cent, or to about $100 million of its total $715
million in lending, Pung Kheav Se said.
Seven per cent of total
lending currently went to agricultural development, but the figure
should hit 12 per cent next year, he said.
The bank was also
preparing to finance rice procurement in provin-ces such as Banteay
Meanchey, Battambang, Siem Reap and Kampong Thom in an attempt to limit
the amount of paddy rice that flowed to Thailand and Vietnam, Pung Kheav
Se said.
The Takeo mill would process about 300 tonnes of rice a day, or about 60,000 tonnes a year, he said.
Its capacity could be raised to about 100,000 tonnes in the future, one-tenth of the Kingdom’s 2015 rice-export goal, he added.
Domestic
banks provided about $140 million to rice millers for rice procurement
this year, but that figure should increase to $350 million by 2015 – or
enough to buy a million tonnes of unmilled rice, Federation of Cambodian
Rice Miller Associat-ions president Phou Puy said.
Cambodia exported 51,000 tonnes of milled rice in 2010, according to the World Bank.
Between
January and October, milled-rice exports increased year-on-year by more
than seven per cent, hitting 136,000 tonnes, according to the Ministry
of Commerce.
In a report issued in July, the World Bank expressed
doubt about the Kingdom’s ability to export a million tonnes of milled
rice by 2015 – a goal Prime Minister Hun Sen and the Cambodian
government have steadfastly reiterated.
Logistic bottlenecks and a dearth of milling capacity could limit milled-rice exports to 250,000 tonnes, the report said.
Takeo’s
rice-milling capacity presently stood at around 100 tonnes a day, Takeo
Rice Millers Association president Doung Heng said.
Despite the
potential jump in rice input needed for the new factory, Cambodian
farmers would still be able to meet the demand for paddy at existing
domestic mills, he said.
“[The new rice mill] will not cause
internal competition,” Doung Heng said, adding that paddy exports to
neighbouring countries could be used domestically.
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