As rice is a basic food staple in Asia and it seems it will continue to be in that way at least for a while, food security will still be a big issue. In turn, as the main agricultural crop it is very important for the economy as a whole. Most big producing countries are also big consumers, which always put Governments in a very-difficult-to-solve dilemma. On one hand, Govts need important volumes of cheap rice in order to feed population, especially poor people. If rice prices go up, they will be in trouble at the time of providing enough rice in an affordable way to consumers. Considering that most Asian countries, mainly in Southeast Asia, have large populations, a rice scarcity or too expensive rice will surely lead to serious struggle. Thus, Govts must assure not only enough quantities of the cereal but also at affordable prices. But this is just part of the story. The other part is that many of these same countries also have an important rice production sector. That means that if rice prices are too much low it will affect income of rural households, which is another big problem. Thus, the temptation is to engage in complex pricing systems to ensure prices high enough to producers and low enough to consumers. These public policies are very expensive and may led Govts to bankruptcy. That's more or less what happened to Thai Govt. After the Thai crisis, now Asian Govts move with caution but no one expects they will move to market liberalization. Govts will still need to navigate through difficult equilibrium. Some countries as Cambodia and Myanmar are opening somewhat their rice sectors and are coming back again to the international market encouraging the increase of production for exports, following the pathway of Vietnam. Some traditional net importers such as The Philippines and Indonesia have been pursuing self sufficiency but it does not seems they will be achieving this in the short and medium run. But of course, the big players, China and India are the ones setting the rules of the game. It seems that China will continue as an important net importer in the next years. The change, with regard to 4-5 years ago, relates to India performance as an important exporter in the last years. All of these becomes even more complex when considering the weather variability. The outcome each year is closely related to what happens with the Monsoon during the rainy season. As a result, of all this variability and the uncertainty behind that, is something that the Govt of the affected nations cannot leave behind. They will continue addressing this problems through public policies that, although sometimes costly and  plenty of inefficiencies, is sometimes the only tool at hand to deal with this two-fenced dilemma. Hope this helps. Let me know if you want to go deeply on some of these issues.