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YANGON, May 6 (Reuters) - Cyclone-battered Myanmar has enough rice for domestic consumption despite damage to some grain stored in the Irrawaddy delta, a minister in the military government said on Tuesday.
Information Minister Brigadier General Kyaw Hsan referred to Myanmar's agreement before the storm to provide 50,000 tonnes of rice to Sri Lanka but he did not elaborate in the first news conference on the storm that killed 15,000 people [ID:nSP228208].
The United Nations World Food Programme fears that the cyclone and flooding in two major rice growing areas could also affect food supply in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh [ID: nBKK133467].
"I think there was some damage to rice stored by private merchants and growers, but we have enough surplus for domestic sufficiency," Information Minister Brigadier General Kyaw Hsan said in the badly-damaged former capital of Yangon.
World Food Programme spokesman Paul Risley said in Bangkok on Monday that it was too early yet to assess the damage to crops in the main rice-producing regions.
Myanmar state media said in April the country had exported about 400,000 tonnes of rice in the past year because it had enough supplies to feed its 53 million people.
Global stocks for the staple food of half of the world's population have halved since hitting a record high in 2001.
Prices in Asia have almost trebled this year as export restrictions by leading suppliers fuel insecurity over food supplies.
(Reporting by Aung Hla Tun; Editing by Grant McCool and Jacqueline Wong)
People clear fallen trees in Yangon May 4, 2008. The powerful Cyclone Nargis that slammed into Myanmar's low-lying Irrawaddy delta triggered a massive wave that gave people nowhere to run, killing ...
