Pacific market in sight for Fiji Rice Ltd

Fiji Rice Limited is eyeing the Pacific as a potential export market, with Solomon Islands and Vanuatu identified as key targets as the state-owned company looks to grow beyond its domestic base.

Company chairman Raj Sharma revealed this during a Standing Committee on Economic Affairs hearing in Parliament today.

"Potentially a market for us to sell rice, even in the Pacific, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, is there for us and we are seriously looking at that," Mr Sharma said.

He added that the company was also exploring export opportunities to Canada, the United States, and Australia, with a goal of eventually exporting about 20 per cent of its production overseas at premium prices.

"If it goes out, it will cut down our government dependencies too," Mr Sharma said.

Fiji Rice Limited is a 100 per cent government-owned company that mills locally grown paddy, unhusked rice, and sells it under the Fiji Rice brand.

It currently supplies only about 17 per cent of Fiji's domestic rice needs, with the rest imported at a cost of between $60 million and $80 million a year.

Chief executive Mukesh Kumar said the company was also supplying some boarding schools and the Fiji Sugar Corporation, and was focusing to grow institutional sales locally before scaling up exports.

Opposition MP Premila Kumar welcomed the export ambition but cautioned that it was premature if local production remained weak.

"You can have all these mills, you can have all this infrastructure, but the production is not there. That is the key issue," she said.