July-April rice exports increases to $1.55 billion

[Naveed Yaseen]

By Moonis Ahmed
KARACHI: The country’s rice exports have increased to $1.55 billion during July-April, 2009, Rice Exporters Association of Pakistan (REAP) informed Daily Times on Thursday.

According to the figures given by REAP, Pakistan exported a total of 20.816 million tonnes rice of different varieties to various countries across the globe in this period.

The export of non-basmati rice variety increased to 14.238 million tonnes worth $770 million, while 0.657 million tonnes basmati rice worth $780 million were exported in the first nine months of the current fiscal.

“Despite financial crisis, global economic recession and intense competition in the international markets due to bumper crop in almost all rice growing countries, Pakistan’s rice exports showed a tremendous increase,” traders said.

Pakistan, the world’s fifth-largest rice exporter, was hoping to export up to 4 million tonnes of rice after a bumper crop of 6.2 million tonnes to 6.5 million tonnes, as compared with 5.50 million tonnes the previous year.

Pakistan’s rice exports in the 2008-09 financial year could be less than 3 million tonnes as compared with 3.3 million tonnes last year because of high domestic prices, industry sources said.

But, exports fell during the November-January period following a government’s decision to buy rice from traders and enter the export market, according to exporters. Government’s intervention made rice more expensive, hurting exports, they said.

“We now hope to export approximately 2.8 million to 2.9 million tonnes of rice by the end of the fiscal year,” said Chairman REAP Abdul Rahim Janoo.

He said that the government wants to increase country’s exports to earn more foreign exchange but according to him some bureaucrats are not ready to cooperate with the exporters and usually create hurdles. “We will discuss this issue with the Commerce Minister Makhdoom Amin Fahim in a meeting to be held within the next two days,” he added

Rice accounts for about 8 percent of Pakistani exports and 12 percent of gross domestic product. The government’s decision to buy rice and paddy was aimed at helping farmers and maintaining stability in domestic prices in the face of a bumper crop, but traders said that this move left Pakistan uncompetitive in the international market.

Government data showed rice exports fell nearly 8 percent in the July-February period from a year earlier. Exports fell more than 50 percent in January from the same month in 2008.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp...2009_pg5_8