Determinants of Rice Trade in the World Market

Abstract

Structurally, the world rice market is thin because it has always been a residual market. The thin market refers to the low ratio of trade (imports and exports) to production. The proportion of world rice production traded internationally is very small and stayed below 5 per cent per annum for the last four decades. The ratio of trade to production is small because "the bulk of rice production occurs in the monsoon lands of Asia, which stretch from Pakistan to Japan, and these countries are also major consumers" (Siamwalla and Haykin, 1983: 11). The coincidence of consumption and production is high in world's major rice producing countries such as China, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Myanmar. Technological changes of mid-1960s and the trade policies pursued by various countries further accentuated the thinning process