Myanmar has managed to achieve its rice export target of 2.5 million tons in over 11 months of the present fiscal year (FY) 2019-2020, an official from the Myanmar Rice Federation told Xinhua on Tuesday.

As of Sept. 11 in the present FY, the country exported over 2.53 million tons of rice and broken rice.

"Rice export target was set to 2.5 million tons in early months of FY 2019-2020 and was later reduced to 2.4 million tons due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. But we, somehow, managed to surpass the target, thanks to the efforts exerted by all stakeholders," Myint Lwin, chief executive officer of the federation said.

From Oct. 1, 2019 to Sept. 11, the country earned over 774.89 million U.S. dollars from exports of 1.58 million tons of rice and 947,933 tons of broken rice.

During the period, over 2.1 million tons of rice, which is 84 percent of the total rice export, is done through sea route while the rest were exported via border gates.

Demand for Myanmar's rice mainly comes from China, Malaysia and the Philippines while its broken rice is mostly bought by Belgium, China and Senegal.

In over 11 months of this FY, 30 percent of the total rice and broken rice export share went to neighboring China while 28 percent to African countries and 20 percent to European Union member states, respectively, the federation's figures showed.

COVID-19 was first detected in Myanmar on March 23 this year and the rice export was suspended in whole April.

The rice export resumed later while the rice reserve scheme was implemented, letting rice exporters sell 10 percent of their total export volume to the government as the country's reserved rice.