Indonesia to purchase rice from Pakistan (Source: jakartaglobe) Jakarta (VNA) – Indonesia will purchase 1 million tonnes of rice from Pakistan within the next four years in an attempt to ensure food security against increasingly extreme weather.
A memorandum of understanding (MoU) on the deal, worth roughly 400 million USD, was signed between Indonesian Minister of Trade Thomas Lembong and Ambassador of Pakistan to Indonesia Mohammad Nadeem on December 8.
According the MoU, the purchase will be executed by Indonesia’s state logistics agency (BULOG) and the Trading Corporation of Pakistan between 2016 and 2019.
Indonesia has inked similar MoUs with Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam, but only some have been realised.
Pakistan is the world’s eleventh largest rice producer with an annual output of 6.9 million tonnes of rice.
Last year, the two-way trade between Pakistan and Indonesia saw an increase of 27 percent, reaching 2.2 billion USD following a Preferential Trade Agreement in 2013.-VNA
