Pakistan's domestic rice prices are expected to decline further in the coming week because of lower than anticipated international demand and slow buying from exporters, dealers said on Tuesday. West African countries have good demand for rice but Pakistani traders were facing stiff competition from the South East Asian exporters, who were selling IRRI variety of rice at cheaper prices making Pakistan uncompetitive, an exporter said.
"Vietnam and Thailand are selling rice at $225 to $230 (per tonne) and their quality is better than ours. Our exporters cannot compete at such prices," said exporter Abdul Majeed.
Dealers said export prices have dropped to $240 FOB per tonne but need to come down further to compete in the African markets.
Only small cargoes were being shipped to west African countries to meet old commitments, they said.
The prices of IRRI in the local market were already down, but Basmati was holding stable because of slow arrivals amid rains in the past month.
"Most of the buyers in the Gulf are in a wait-and-see mood so there is no hope of a jump in demand from there," another Karachi-based exporter said.
In the domestic market the prices of key IRRI-6 variety (25 percent broken) fell to 1,330 rupees per 100 kg on Tuesday from 1,350 rupees a week ago.
Pakistan expects its rice crop for the latest season (April to November) to exceed 4.6 million tonnes, compared with four million in the previous year, leaving more than 2.4 million tonnes for export.