However, he said, rice exports have declined by 300,000 tons as only 3 million tons rice was exported last year. According to him, government decision to allow the state-owned Pakistan Agriculture Storage and Services Corporation (Passco) and Trading Corporation of Pakistan (TCP) will increase the country's rice exports.
He was not prepared to accept that intervention of the state-owned entities in rice trade would destroy rice exports and said that rice trading at government to government level would increase the country's rice exports, which is already the biggest exporting commodity.
He said that the private sector has no infrastructure and storage facilities to store rice and ultimately government organisations would have to come to provide these facilities, which are available across the country. He asked that when the country has had a bumper crop, why exports witnessed declining trend? "At this time, the role of state-owned organisation is more important to support the declining trend of the country's rice exports," he added.
He said that the growers never get real price of their crop and it needs intervention of state-owned entities so that they can get a handsome price of their commodity exactly at harvesting time. He claimed that the country's rice exports could increase to $3 billion, from $2 billion, with supplementary exports by state-owned organisations.
According to him, Passco's old rice stock was around 100,000 tons and, after buying 100,000 tons paddy, total stock would be around 150,000 tons. He said that export of Passco's total stock at country to country level would increase. "It will supplement the existing trade and will not create any problem for the private sector rice exporters," he added.