Muse border sees daily exports of over 10,000 rice bags to China

More than 10,000 bags of rice and broken rice are daily conveyed to China through the Muse border post, U Min Thein, vice-chair of the Muse Rice Wholesale Centre said.
The Foreign Exchange Supervisory Committee notified the traders of the dollar payment for agricultural exports such as rice, corn, oil crops, beans and pulses.
Nonetheless, rice and broken rice exports via Muse border post are excluded from this directive at present and Yuan payment is available as before. This being so, there is a steady flow of rice exports to China through the Muse border.
“At present, rice and broken rice are daily flowing into Muse market and they are exported to China regularly. There is no need for rice transactions to be paid in US dollars,” U Min Thein highlighted.
Additionally, the prices remain unchanged at 120 Yuan per 50-kilo bag of broken rice and 140-150 Yuan per bag of rice.
On 14 December 2021, the Central Bank of Myanmar released a notification that the use of Yuan or Kyat in the bilateral transaction was officially allowed in the border areas between Myanmar and China to boost the bilateral cross-border trade, facilitate the trading and bilateral transaction, increase the use of domestic currency, as per the objectives of the ASEAN Financial Integration.
After export earnings on agricultural produce were earlier set to be paid in dollars instead of Yuan, the official exchange rate against the US dollar was set at K1,850.
At present, the dollar was valued at over K2,500 in the informal FX market, indicating a large gap in the exchange rate. Consequently, it dealt a huge blow to the agricultural produce and exports drastically fell, traders said.
Myanmar daily conveys approximately 10,000 bags of rice and broken rice to China through the Muse border. Other beans and pulses, rubber, food commodities, fishery products and mango are also delivered to China. — NN/GNLM