Meeting with Iraqi Ministry of Trade Yields Fruitful Discussion

ARLINGTON, VA -- Yesterday, USA Rice hosted eight officials from Iraq’s Ministry of Trade for a presentation on the quality and reliability of U.S. rice.  After discussing this year’s crop, the officials asked questions about available aromatic varieties in the U.S., ways to conduct sampling that are more consistent with U.S. methods, and common fumigation practices.  USA Rice also raised the issue again of reintroducing bulk rice shipments to Iraq as a way of facilitating greater participation by U.S. exporters.

“This is the second time that USA Rice has hosted Iraq’s Ministry of Trade in the past two months and we look forward to additional visits so that we can continue to strengthen trade with one of our top export markets,” said USA Rice President & CEO Betsy Ward.

Over the past six months, 180,000 MT of U.S. rice has been sold to Iraq.

The delegation will be in the U.S. for nearly three weeks as part of the Department of State’s International Visitor Leadership Program.  In addition to learning about U.S. agricultural commodities, they will review the benefits of open trade regimes and examine global standard practices of administering trade policy.