PHNOM PENH: Despite a 1.8 percent increase in world rice prices between December and January, quotations remained well below year-earlier levels across Southeast Asia, the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) says.
According to the UN agency’s monthly Food Price Monitoring and Analysis Bulletin released on Wednesday, recent prices were as much as 30 percent down from a year earlier.
In Cambodia, wholesale rice prices were between 5 and 25 percent lower year-on-year in December, reflecting last year’s above-average main harvest.
The bulletin noted a government allocation of US$40 million in November to buy rice from farmers at fair prices, “with the aim of stabilising falling domestic prices of rice and safeguarding farmers’ livelihoods.”
In Vietnam, wholesale prices in January were between 10 and 30 percent below year-earlier levels, “reflecting ample market availability from the above-average 2025 harvests and subdued international demand,” the bulletin said.
Vietnamese sales to Filipino buyers after last month’s removal of a Philippine import ban on non-specialty rice “proved insufficient to offset downward pressure exerted by large exportable supplies and subdued demand from other buyers.”
In Thailand, prices were about 25 percent below year-earlier levels in January, following a downward trend between June 2024 and October 2025.
“A slowdown in sales led to price declines, despite the continued appreciation of the baht against the United States dollar,” the bulletin said.
In Myanmar, prices in January were about 10 percent down from a year earlier but “remained relatively high following the sharp increases between 2022 and 2024 linked to high input and transport costs, ongoing conflict and flood-related disruptions in mid-2025.”
In the Philippines, retail prices of regular and well-milled rice in January were 8 to 10 percent lower year-on-year, reflecting adequate availability from the main harvest and secondary harvest currently underway.
Elsewhere in Asia, the wholesale national average price of Indica rice in China in January was about 4 percent lower year-on-year, reflecting ample market availability from the record production harvested in 2024 and 2025.