The Ethiopia Commodity Exchange (ECX) includes the trading of rice on its electronic trading floor.
According to the statement sent by ECX, the exchange has traded 60 quintals of rice on its trading embankment of the commodity, on Thursday April 6.
On the day, rice of grade 3 which was stored at Bure warehouse has been traded for the average price of 6,400 birr per quintal.
The introduction of rice trading is expected to benefit producers in getting better prices and improve their bargaining power, in addition enabling buyers to purchase the commodity on market basis.
Currently, rice is produced in Amhara, Benshangul Gumuz, Gambella, Oromia, SNNP and Tigray regions.
Rice is a relatively new grain to Ethiopia, with its introduction only taking place in the 1970s. As a result its consumer demand has far outstripped supply and, today, rice imports account for 76 per cent of Ethiopia’s rice consumption.
In recent years, production of the grain has been expanding. For instance, the country produced two million metric tons of rice in the 2019/20 harvest season that increased by almost 700,000 metric tons in contrast with the amount registered four years earlier.
Of the total production, individual farmers took the lion’s share with 60 percent, while the rest is accounted by private investors.