Total rice imports by country cost China a total US$1.46 billion via purchases from 15 rice-supplying trade partners during 2020. That dollar amount reflects an -8% decrease in cost since 2016 but a 16.4% acceleration from 2019 to 2020.
The vast majority of China’s rice imports originate from fellow Asian countries. Notable exceptions among these suppliers are strategically located Russia and the United States of America and Italy.
Top Providers of Chinese Imported Rice
Below are the 15 countries that supplied 100% of the rice imported by China during 2020.
- Vietnam: US$451,874,000 (31% of China’s total rice imports)
- Myanmar: $324,046,000 (22.2%)
- Thailand: $242,324,000 (16.6%)
- Pakistan: $187,333,000 (12.8%)
- Cambodia: $158,444,000 (10.9%)
- Laos: $52,273,000 (4%)
- Taiwan: $38,430,000 (2.63%)
- Japan: $2,930,000 (0.20%)
- India: $1,467,000 (0.10%)
- Russia: $67,000 (0.005%)
- South Korea: $42,000 (0.003%)
- United States: $31,000 (0.0021%)
- China: $30,000 (0.0021%)
- Philippines: $3,000 (0.0002%)
- Italy: $1,000 (0.0001%)
Two of mainland China’s leading rice suppliers, Vietnam and Myanmar (Burma), account for over half (53.2%) the total value of China’s imported rice for 2020.
The top 5 rice providers supplied 93.5% of Chinese imports of the staple grain.
Those percentages illustrate China’s highly concentrated cohort of rice suppliers.
Fastest-Growing Suppliers of China’s Rice Imports
Chinese purchases of rice from one of its smaller suppliers, the United States, expanded by 5 times year over year, much greater than the overall 16.4% gain which encompasses statistics for all of China’s rice suppliers (where 2019 data was available).
- United States: Up 520% since 2019
- India: Up 184.9%
- Taiwan: Up 111.3%
- Vietnam: Up 87.7%
- Myanmar: Up 59.1%
- Laos: Up 50.3%
- South Korea: No 2019 data
- China: No 2019 data
- Philippines: No 2019 data
- Cambodia: Down -7.6%
- Japan: Down -18%
- Pakistan: Down -20.2%
- Thailand: Down -29.9%
- Russia: Down -54.7%
- Italy: Down -90%
India and Taiwan enjoyed triple-digit increases in their annual sales to the People’s Republic from 2019 to 2020.
The severest reductions year over year were experienced by rice suppliers in Russia and Italy.
See also Rice Exports by Country, Rice Imports by Country and China’s Top 10 Exports
Research Sources
Central Intelligence Agency, The World Factbook Field Listing: Exports – Commodities. Accessed on August 25, 2021
International Trade Centre, Trade Map. Accessed on August 25, 2021
Wikipedia, Rice. Accessed on August 25, 2021
