Cambodia exported 289,439 tons of milled rice to China in 2020, up 16.6 percent from 248,105 tons in the year before, Agriculture Minister Veng Sakhon said on Friday.

China is the top buyer of Cambodia’s milled rice, followed by the European Union (EU), he said, adding that the export to China accounted for 41.9 percent of Cambodia’s total rice export last year.

Cambodia exported 203,791 tons of milled rice to the European market last year, up 0.4 percent year-on-year, the minister said, adding that the European market accounted for 29.5 percent of the total rice export.

According to Sakhon, in 2020, Cambodia exported a total of 690,829 tons of milled rice to 60 countries and regions, an increase of 11.4 percent from a year earlier.

The minister said the Southeast Asian nation earned $539 million in gross revenue from the milled rice export last year.

Cambodia produced close to 11 million tons of paddy rice last year, he said, adding that with this amount, the kingdom saw a paddy rice surplus of 5.9 million tons in equivalent to 3.7 million tons of milled rice. Xinhua