The junta’s Commerce Ministry has warned business owners who store rice and paddy for vending purposes to register their warehouses or face legal action.
The ministry warned that business owners who store 50 tonnes of rice or more than 5,000 baskets of paddy (about 20 kg per basket) must register their warehouses.
Owners are required to register at the Myanmar Rice Online (MYRO) digital platform.
The ministry explained that registration is necessary because it will help it manage rice stocks for domestic sufficiency and export, allowing it to ensure the stability of the rice market and prices, and to implement subsidies as necessary.
The junta-affiliated Myanmar Rice Federation also urged business owners to register their warehouses online by Friday. The federation told owners to inform it if they failed to register by the deadline.
The Commerce Ministry has formed teams in the regions and states to check whether rice sellers have registered their warehouses and to verify the data submitted in the registrations, according to the Myanmar Rice Federation. Action has been taken against those who fail to comply, it said.
One rice dealer in Yangon said: “In recent checks, we were asked if we had registered our warehouses. We said we were working on it. They said they will carry out checks on the remaining shops that are yet to be checked.”
The Myanmar military regime recently detained some rice dealers and retailers who it said sold rice at above the set prices, in a publicized move aimed at stabilizing prices.
The Commerce Ministry said a total of 726 warehouses had been registered as of June 23—213 by companies and 513 by individuals.
The monsoon paddy harvest is expected to decline steeply this year as farmers are cultivating less land due to the armed conflict raging around the country and high prices of agricultural input.
