Pakistan: Export of non-basmati rice declines by 46 pc

The export of non-basmati rice in Pakistani market has suffered a major blow in the month of March as it showed 46 per cent that seemed the outcome of sharp increase in domestic prices of rice, The Nation, Pakistani newspaper reports on Monday.

Overall export of rice fell by 18.71 percent during the month of March 2007, as the export of rice fetched US$104.52 million. Under the category of essential food commodities the export of others varieties of rice has decreased by 45.83 percent.

Official statistics showed that the quantity of other varieties of rice was 163,875 tons, amounting toUS$43.20 million foreign, which is considerably lower in comparison with the corresponding period of FY06. This trend of export is totally negative as compared to trend of export in March 2006, when Pakistan exported 425,671-ton rice and obtained a business of around Rs 7.716 billion. And under the category of other rice the country had fetched Rs 4.785 billion on account of exporting about 342,420-ton rice.

The statistics also showed substantial growth of 25.57 percent in Basmati rice export in March this year, while the total export of Basmati surged to Rs 3.722 billion in exportation of 103,121-ton rice in the said month. The export of Basmati is greater as compare to same month of last year. During March 2006 the exportation of Basmati was 83,251-ton, which fetched Rs 4.785 billion.

The experts are of the view that the decrease of the rice export is mainly due to adverse weather that damaged rice crop in the country. The decline of rice export also affected on the total export of primary commodities, which is low as compare to last year.

Basmati exports, however, showed a robust growth of 35.58 percent during February 2007 as compared to the same month of last year. In value basmati rice fetched 49.66 million dollars in February this year and 365.68 million dollars in eight months (July-Feb FY07). However, in eight months of this fiscal the overall rice exports marked 0.61 percent decline over the corresponding period of last fiscal.