The 2008 local rice harvest was 235,800 tonnes of grain versus just 69,000 tonnes in 2007, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Water Resources. The sharp rise is due largely to considerable government assistance and a favourable rainy season.
But despite the production increase, at 62 US cents per kilogram in November 2008, local rice prices were still 30% higher than in November 2007, and are not sufficiently lower than imported rice prices to encourage urban consumers to turn to local.
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