Pakistan rice exports hit highest level of history in FY 2022 during PTI government tenure
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achieved the milestone of exporting the commodity worth $2.511 billion during the financial year 2021-22 by exporting slightly over 4.877 million tons of rice despite various impediments such as higher freight rates and non-availability of containers.
The total rice exports include 750,617 tons basmati and 4,126,674 tons non-basmati. Compared to the last fiscal 2020-21, the total rice exports remained at 4.016 million tons.
Sharing the figures with Business Recorder on Wednesday, Rice Exporters Association of Pakistan (REAP) Chairman Ali Hussam Asghar said four factors played major role in uplifting the rice exports from Pakistan which include availability of surplus stocks of non-basmati rice for exports, lower prices of Basmati rice as compared to India at the start of the exporting season, more basmati exports to the regional countries and permission by the government to allow ‘bulk vessel loading’ for brown rice.
Ali Hussam said that due to lower prices of Basmati, international players approached Pakistan for their buying needs while permission to allow bulk vessel loading due to non-availability of containers in the required quantity, pushed up the exports helping Pakistan to achieve record exports.
He paid tribute to the government agencies for allowing the exporters to adopt bulk vessel loading method to meet their international commitments.
Replying to a query, he dispelled the impression that currency devaluation has played any role in pushing the exports up as he claimed that it only became possible due to availability of surplus non-basmati rice and international buyers who preferred Pakistani basmati due to price difference with India.
Talking about the future road map, he said the government should invest all its energies in resolving the supply chain issues as well as growing more to export more. “We have done what we can with the existing crop in hand and situation will only improve if we can grow more. We have to incentivize farmers rather encourage the services sector to come into the field for introducing rice translators and rice harvesters to get more out of the land in hand,” he added.
Ali Hussam said using rice-translators can double the number of plants in one acre from 40,000 to 80,000 while rice specific harvesters can save the wastage of rice during harvesting. It will make available more production per acre to add to the profitability of the farmers and other stakeholders.
“We should work on this side on emergent basis to take the exports to $3 billion next year,” he remarked.
