PHNOM PENH, April 5 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia recorded a sharp rise in milled rice export in the first three months of 2012 thanks to increasing international market demand and more investment in post- harvest technologies, Prime Minister Hun Sen said Friday.

A commerce report showed that the country exported 95,230 tons of milled rice during the January-March period this year, up 148 percent from 38,400 tons in the same period of last year.

"The growth is attributable to efforts to seek foreign markets for Cambodian rice and more investment by the private sector in building sophisticated rice processing plants," the premier said during the weekly meeting of the Council of Ministers at the Peace Palace.

He expressed his belief that the country would be able to achieve the target of one-million-ton rice exports by 2015.

Cambodian milled rice is sold to European countries, the United States, South Korea, Japan, China, and some member countries of the ASEAN.

The Ministry of Agriculture announced in January that the country produced 9.31 million tons of paddy rice last year. Of that, around 3 million tons of milled rice is for export this year.

For the whole year of 2012, Cambodia exported 205,717 tons of milled rice, up only 2 percent year-on-year.

Cambodia is an agrarian country, with more than 80 percent of its population being farmers.