Rice syndicate for quality review committee restructuring

Pakistan Rice Syndicate (PRS), comprising rice growers, millers, processors, packers, exporters and brokers, has urged the Ministry of Commerce (MoC) to restructure the Quality Review Committee (QRC) to make it functional as ''Quality Rahnuma Committee'' instead of carrying out just pre-shipment inspection. The committee would serve the rice exporters as a guiding body in the selection of grains, quality control and productivity. Rice exporters need the services of ''analysers'' to help advise entrepreneurs about the different varieties of grains and require grading of the kernels.
They need guidance from the procurement stage till the final shipment and mere PSI at the eleventh hour is senseless.
The PRS members, objecting to the role of QRC, said PSI by a body managed by rice exporters themselves is giving rise to conflict of interests, on the one hand, and, on the other, the buyers are questioning the wisdom behind PSI conducted by exporters themselves.
PSI is always carried out by a body nominated by the buyers, because it is their prerogative and not of the exporters or the government.
The PRS members comprising rice stakeholders advised the government to relieve the QRC of the PSI and give it a broader scope of helping the rice exporters in the correct perspective of improving quality by exporting the right grains matching the price paid by the buyer.
Inspection is secondary to quality. What matters is the quality, and focus should be on the quality, as inspection is carried out by the buyers'' nominated inspection companies, and a self-nominated body is a mockery of pre-shipment inspection, said a member of PRS.
Other important matters discussed at the meeting were related to the high cost of production, law and order situation, increasing freight rates, non-availability of packing materials, and development of Sindh varieties of rice.
Development of logistics facilities was also discussed at length by Moiz Fazalbhai of the Institute of Material Management and was much appreciated by all stakeholders.