The Agriculture and Food Security Ministry is restricting the purchase of local white rice to 100kg per person, effective immediately.
According to the director-general of the agriculture and food security ministry’s padi and rice regulatory division, Azman Mahmood, the restriction is put in place with the aim of addressing disruptions of the white rice market.
Azman revealed that this move was put in place after his division found out that some traders have been hoarding local white rice, buying up to 5000 -7000kg at once.
“That’s why we are implementing this restriction starting from today,” he told reporters at the Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute headquarters yesterday.
According to Azman, the restriction is in no way permanent, as it will only be imposed until the supply of local white rice normalizes.
He also added that the government has sufficient stocks to last six months.
The hoarding of local white rice is due to the increase in price for imported rice, which in turn was caused by disruptions faced by the two biggest exporting countries, Vietnam and India.
According to users on Tiktok, this has caused supplies of local white rice to dwindle, to the point of scarcity in some areas.
Read More: Malaysians Will Have To Pay More For Imported Rice
