Phnom Penh - Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said Wednesday that he would visit the Gulf states of Kuwait and Qatar in January to discuss rice exports in a bid to corner the Gulf market.
'Those countries have oil but no rice,' he said in a speech carried on state radio during a rice-planting ceremony about 40 kilometres south-west of Phnom Penh. 'I think the Gulf can become our rice market.'
Cambodia has been exporting low-grade rice to African countries, such as Guinea, and is muscling its way toward being a major regional rice exporter.
His announcement came one day after Kuwaiti Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser al-Mohammed al-Ahmed al-Jaber al-Saba ended a three-day visit to Cambodia and discussed swapping his country's technical assistance for arable land for cultivation of quality rice for Kuwait.
Cambodia welcomed cash, not credit, Hun Sen said.
'We are a poor country, so when countries buy our rice they should pay, not owe money,' the premier said.
That should not be a problem for oil-rich Qatar and Kuwait, both of whose prime ministers have visited Cambodia this year.
By 2015, the Cambodian government said, it hopes to export 10 million tons of the staple per year.
