The Agriculture and Food Security Ministry hopes to hold a meeting with India’s Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Minister soon to find the best solution for the issue of white rice export restrictions.
Its minister Datuk Seri Mohamad Sabu said the issue was among the priorities of the government-to-government meeting, Bernama reported.
“Currently at the ministry level, we are in contact to get a (suitable) date so that we can travel there. “We will ask them to continue exporting white rice to Malaysia. That is our hope because if they suddenly restrict white rice export, it will lead to an increase in the price of rice in Malaysia,” he said after the Pulai parliamentary and Simpang Jeram state seats by-election workers’ appreciation ceremony here on Sunday.
In the meantime, Mohamad said the restrictions had caused the price of imported rice in this country to increase dramatically, causing consumers to switch to local rice which is much cheaper.
“Our rice supply is still sufficient; it’s just that if the imported rice price is fairly high, it causes people to look for local rice and this has caused a slight shortage in some places.
“However, we are addressing it now with the harvest in the area of the Muda Agricultural Development Authority, which will be in the market in less than a month, and even now, we are trying to ‘top up’ any shortages,” he added.
In July, India reportedly banned the export of non-basmati white rice to curb the rise in rice prices in the domestic market following a supply shortage due to heavy rains which affected the crop.