China has granted export licenses for rice to 43 new Myanmar companies. A spokesperson from the Myanmar Rice Federation (MRF) said that the new licenses should boost the volume of rice Myanmar sells to China, which has suffered both from the COVID-19 pandemic and tighter restrictions from the China side.

“Beginning in March, China began restricting imports from Myanmar to companies that registered with the Chinese authorities,” MRF executive committee member U Soe Tun told the Myanmar Times. “As China has now officially registered more Myanmar companies, there will be a large market for our country and it will be better in the long run.” According to the Myanmar Times report, rice exports have plummeted to between 40,000 and 50,000 tons since March. By contrast, Myanmar exported over 1.19 million tons of rice to China in the first five months of the current fiscal year, according to the MRF. In February state media predicted the year’s rice exports to exceed 2.5 million tons.

Myanmar, too, has imposed its own restrictions. In an attempt to prevent the overland spread of the coronavirus, the validity period of Myanmar’s own export licenses was reduced from 90 days to 45 days. After the rate of new COVID-19 infections began to fall, the period was increased to 60 days at the end of June.

China remains Myanmar’s top trade partner, buying roughly one third of all Myanmar’s exports. Barring the recent dip in demand, rice is one of the main products sold to its largest neighbor. According to data obtained by Xinhua News, Myanmar exported more than 2.35 million tons of rice and broke the 2018—2019 fiscal year record.