Registration of Basmati rice: Commerce secretary for adopting joint strategy

Federal Commerce Secretary Zafar Mehmood has advocated adopting joint strategy for the registration of Basmati rice as a common heritage of Pakistan and India. "It is a common heritage of Pakistan and India and we should adopt a joint strategy for the registration of basmati rice in the international market," he said while speaking at a reception hosted by Rice Exporters Association of Pakistan (REAP) in his honour, here on Friday night.
In this regard, he indicated that a meeting would be held with Indian authorities to discuss the issue of registration of basmati rice as a common heritage in the international market. He emphasised the rice exporters to focus on value addition of the commodity to earn more foreign exchange and to compete with India after opening of trade between the two nations.
He said some other countries like India and Bangladesh had developed a number of products of rice. They were earning huge money with focusing on value edition of the commodity, he added. "We are going to start trade with India and there is need to develop new products of rice to compete in the market," he said. Regarding the issue of REAP mandatory membership of Quality Review Committee (QRC), the secretary commerce said the government was ready to discuss the issue with REAP members and if there were a legal provision, the ministry would fully support the REAP membership of QRC.
He said the government was willing to provide its support to the rice exporters who wanted to import machinery from India. Earlier, in his welcome speech, Chairman REAP Javed Islam Agha said the rice export target of $2 billion would be achieved during the current fiscal year. Former chairman REAP, Abdul Rahim Janoo said the REAP had set its target to become the member of $4 billion club in rice exports by the year 2014.
He pointed out that the QRC had played a very important role in rice export increase. The QRC was under Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP) and was managed by REAP. He said there was not a single default of any rice exporter due to quality of rice during last many years as the QRC was successfully managing quality of exported rice in a very transparent way.
He demanded the restoration of REAP mandatory membership of the QRC so that the system would continue smoothly. He informed the REAP members that TDAP was going to organise a Biryani festival in China soon. "China is a big buyer of Pakistani rice and we will send our delegation to this festival," he said. He said the country's rice exporters were capable of competing with India after resumption of trade between the two countries. "We are not worried about the resumption of trade with India and we are ready to compete with our competitors," he said.