Rice Exporters Association of Pakistan (REAP) has warned that two billion dollar rice export from Pakistan would be at stake, if the government did not include all varieties of Indian rice in negative list.
REAP Chairman Javed Islam Agha told media persons here on Saturday that the import of rice from India would badly hit local production, causing huge losses to exporters, traders and farmers because cheaper import of agri-products from India would ruin agricultural production potential of the country.
He urged the Ministry of Commerce to include all varieties of rice in negative list to avoid dumping of Indian rice in Pakistani market to save farmers, traders and exporters from losses besides avoiding losing very important markets of Afghanistan, Iran and Central Asian States. Pir Nazim Hussein Shah, Former Vice-Chairman Tariq Aziz, Taufiq Ahmad Khan, Khawaja Zahid and various other prominent rice exporters were also present at the press conference.
Referring to media reports Javed Islam Agha said that Pakistani buyers had placed the first order of at least 2,500 tons of rice out of which 100 tons had already reached in the local markets of Punjab. Traditionally, he said the price of Indian basmati and other rice varieties used to be at least US $100-300 metric tons higher than Pakistani rice varieties but after the arrival of new crop in October-November 2011, India taking advantage of its huge stocks, bumper crop and devaluation of its rupee by 15-20 percent reduced their prices by 20 to 30 percent and now they were selling US $100-300 metric ton cheaper than Pakistani Basmati and other varieties such as Kainat (1121).
Recently, he said the Indian government has also reduced the Minimum Export Price (MEP) on basmati rice from US $900 to US $700 per metric ton, which is far below the Pakistani Basmati rice prices of US $900-1100 metric tons. Earlier, the Indian government also lifted ban on export of non-basmati rice and allowed export of 2 million tons of non-basmati rice.
Consequently, Pakistan has lost its brown rice market of EU of nearly 170,000 tons to India and is facing great difficulties for export of its basmati rice to Middle East and other countries of the world. The prices of long grain Pakistan IRRI had gone down drastically which is hitting the farmers of Sindh who are demanding compensation for their losses, Javed Islam Agha added.
Opposing the import of rice from India, REAP Chairman claimed that the free import of cheaper Indian parboiled Pusa/1121 would reach the market of Afghanistan by land route and ruin the whatever little export Pakistan is doing to Afghanistan and bring all the parboiling plants imported from India to a standstill.
Once basmati and 1121 sales are affected it will also indirectly hit the farmers who will not grow basmati rice in future and go for cheaper hybrid varieties threatening to close down the US $2 billion rice export of Pakistan, he feared.
Agha said if the government allows the import of Indian rice into Pakistan, then our farmers should also be given the facilities matching with the subsidies being given to Indian farmers, so that our farmers are able to protect their livelihood. 'Indian government is giving about USD 30 billion in subsidies to its farmers. The cost of urea and DAP is less than 50 percent of the Pakistani prices and Indian farmers are also getting cheaper electricity and fuel.