{"id":10028,"date":"2019-09-05T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-09-05T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/phakhaolao.la\/news\/floods-last-year-cause-rice-prices-in-laos-to-double\/"},"modified":"2024-10-21T11:46:53","modified_gmt":"2024-10-21T11:46:53","slug":"floods-last-year-cause-rice-prices-in-laos-to-double","status":"publish","type":"news-post","link":"https:\/\/phakhaolao.la\/en\/news\/floods-last-year-cause-rice-prices-in-laos-to-double\/","title":{"rendered":"Floods last year cause rice prices in Laos to double"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The price of sticky rice in Laos keeps going up, resulting in rice that is two or even three times more expensive. &#8220;<em>A 12-kilogram bag of sticky rice in the capital is now $13, up from $7 late last year<\/em>\u201d, states a\u00a0rice trader from Vientiane Capital\u2019s Xaysettha district. Another trader adds that &#8220;<em>Good quality rice is now more than $10 a bag, but rice from [neighboring] Vietnam is a little bit cheaper<\/em>&#8220;. As a result of this\u00a0upward movement of prices, poor Lao citizens are not able to buy local rice anymore.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The price hike is partly\u00a0caused by\u00a0floods in the most fertile (rice) areas of the country. However, not only the flooded areas are suffering from the increasing prices as it is noticeable in all provinces of Laos. This might be because the demand of the country\u00a0remains constant, while overall supply is low. Besides,\u00a0when the prices for one food are increasing,\u00a0other foods might follow. To illustrate, &#8220;&#8230;\u00a0<em>the price of a chicken used to be $7 about a month ago, but since the swine flu outbreak it is now $7.60 per bird<\/em>&#8220;, as said by an official. The\u00a0African swine flu epidemic seems to play\u00a0a role in this, as this epidemic\u00a0is pushing all the prices up.<\/p>\n<p>The exact causes of the high rice prices are not known yet. Some say the prices increases are due to the floods only, while others say that Laos relies on imports too much.\u00a0This is explained by a resident of Vientiane Capital:\u00a0\u201c<em>Besides the flooding, the Thai baht is also up but the [Lao] kip is down<\/em>\u201d. Therefore, the devaluation of the kip seems to be a cause of the price increases as well. However,\u00a0the impact of the flood itself is undeniable regardless the impact\u00a0of secondary causes.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The rice prices\u00a0are predicted to\u00a0still be as high next year,\u00a0as almost all of the central and southern provinces of Laos are currently being flooded. This probably\u00a0endangers\u00a0next year\u2019s rice yields again.<\/p>\n<p>Information source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rfa.org\/english\/news\/laos\/laos-sticky-rice-price-increase-09052019094704.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">RFA<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","format":"standard","news-type":[131],"class_list":["post-10028","news-post","type-news-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","news-type-news"],"acf":{"pkl_story_headline":"Price hike of sticky rice in Laos due to shortage","pkl_story_authors":"","pkl_story_image":10030,"pkl_story_video":"","pkl_story_image_credits":"https:\/\/www.wikipedia.org","pkl_story_file":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/phakhaolao.la\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-post\/10028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/phakhaolao.la\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-post"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/phakhaolao.la\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news-post"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/phakhaolao.la\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phakhaolao.la\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=10028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}