After three years of respite, the nightmare of zero-duty imports of rice from Cambodia and Myanmar returns to the world of Italian and European rice. Two days ago the safeguard clause that had been obtained and applied in 2019 after grueling international struggles, which had involved institutions, trade associations and entrepreneurs, expired. The clause has imposed, in these three years, the payment of a tax for Indica rice imported into Europe from the two countries of Southeast Asia.
The decision was based on a dossier that demonstrated the negative impact of massive and uncontrolled imports from the two Asian states to the detriment of thousands of Italian, Spanish and Portuguese farms. In Piedmont alone, the first rice growing region in Europe, there are about 1,900 companies, which produce an average of 8 million quintals of cereal on about 117,000 hectares of rice fields.
The data for the three-year period
As a result of the expiry of the clause, rice will be able to enter our continent again without any tax. Yet the positive effects with the restored duty were seen: according to the Market Evolution Report presented by Ente Risi to the Ministry of Agriculture in December, imports of processed basic rice from Cambodia increased from 182,469 tons in the 2019 campaign. 20 to 115,762 of the 2020-21 campaign, while those from Myanmar from 193,398 to 106,783 tons. As a percentage, imports from Cambodia fell by 37%, while those from Myanmar by 45%.
The drops, specify by Ente Risi in the report, “are due to the safeguard clause on milled rice of the indica type, to the increase in container freight costs, and to the sanctions that the European Union has assigned to the leading exponents of the military government of Myanmar and government companies ”.
However, there is an exponential increase in imports of Japonica from Myanmar which are not subject to the payment of the duty. «In three years – explains the president of Ente Risi, Paolo Carrà – the duties have undoubtedly brought advantages: they confirm the abatement of rice imports from Cambodia. This, coupled with the pandemic that increased rice consumption, caused the market to recover. The Indica now travels around 40 euros per quintal, while in the midst of zero-duty imports it went around 25 euros per quintal. The figures speak for themselves, there has been a strong reduction. Now we will go back to previous levels ».
Risks for the future
Is Cambodia Preparing for Invasion Again? According to some local news sites, and reported by Ente Risi, the president of the Cambodia Rice Federation, Song Saran, allegedly declared “that in recent weeks he has encountered a greater demand for rice from EU countries following the imminent non-application of the safeguard clause on Indica of Cambodian and Burmese origin ‘.
At the European level we are preparing for a new battle: «The road is uphill – specifies Carrà -. The Mipaaf and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs are working on the dossier, and we are also trying to make an agreement with Spain, Portugal and Greece, pushing the European Commission so that there is a safeguard clause that is triggered automatically, without resorting to the procedure of the request for activation”. –