950824

Indonesia sees

smaller rice

imports

SINGAPORE: Indonesia expects lower rice imports this year due to forecasts of a good domestic crop, a senior Agriculture Ministry official said on Thursday.

"We are successfully producing rice in the dry upland areas...there will be less demand for importation," Soetatwo Hadiwigeno, the ministry's secretary-general, told reporters at the ASEAN agriculture ministers' meeting in Singapore.

Indonesia imported rice last year, mainly from Thailand and Vietnam, for the first time in 10 years due to prolonged drought.

He gave no import figures for 1994 but some regional rice traders said Indonesia took about 950,000 tonnes last year.

ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, groups Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

However, traders expect Indonesia's import commitments to rise, projecting this year's imports at 2.2 million tonnes, of which 1.2 million had been shipped, and another 1.5 million could be imported in 1996.

Asked by reporters on Indonesia's rice import plans, Hadiwigeno said: "Import is one thing that we sometimes have to do.-Reuter