rice-industry

Myanmar: Rice industry targets increasing exports in 2018-20 with better finances

  • Jan 23, 2018

The Myanmar Rice Federation (MRF) will prioritise scaling up exports for rice between 2018 and 2020, according to the MRF’s SME development plan, which was announced on Sunday.

In addition, the Ministry of National Planning and Finance and the MRF will work together to support SMEs in the rice sector to secure loans.

The government aims to set the target loan amount totalling K65 billion to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the rice sector. The MRF, with the applied SME loans, plans to allocate the financial resources into eight sectors, including seed production, export business, joint-venture formation, upgrading machineries, setting up rice mills and power supply, among others.

State-owned Myanmar Agricultural Development Bank (MADB) announced on January 1 that they will grant loans to agriculture-related SMEs this month.

In addition, the MRF is drafting a working programme for the rice sector, in terms of finances, management and other issues which SMEs are facing. Implementation is expected to begin in April.

The construction of rice and paddy warehouses and related machineries will be set as priorities, thus those projects will be given special consideration for loans. The MRF expects that 20 percent of all the loans will be dedicated to warehouses, whereas 18pc will go to construction of energy plants and 17pc will have reserved for upgrading rice machineries on the field.

According to the MADB, the loans will carry an interest rate of 9pc and businesses which cannot offer collateral will be supported by Credit Guarantee Insurance.

U Soe Tun, MRF vice chair, said that if the country’s rice sector enjoys robust growth, the national economy will also develop significantly. Apart from loans and finances, the government will support the modernisation of technology and market access.

U Nay Lin Zin, managing director of Myanmar Rice Mill Company, commented that a strong export market is necessary for sustainable development for the sector. Hence, the administration and rice federations will need to join forces to secure more government-to-government export arrangements.

Source: https://www.mmtimes.com/news/rice-industry-targets-increasing-exports-2018-20-better-finances.html