In terms of volume, with an increase of 16 percent, Pakistan has exported overall roughly 1.9 million metric tons rice during July-Dec of FY18 compared to 1.64 million metric tons in corresponding period of last fiscal year (FY17). According to Rafique Suleman Senior Vice Chairman REAP, massive surge in rice exports in first half of this fiscal year was a good sign for the entire economy as Pakistan's foreign exchange reserve are depleting and need more foreign inflows to maintain the reserves.
He informed that Indonesia has also floated a tender for procurement of big quantity of rice and two Pakistani companies are also among the successful bidders. "We are very much optimistic and have set a target of 4 million metric tons of Pakistani rice export to earn US$2 billion during this fiscal year," he added. He expressed his gratitude to government and specially Pakistan High Commission at Nairobi for their excellent support in handling the recent issue with Pakistani rice exporters.
Rafique said that Kenya is the largest buyer of Pakistani rice and during half year of this fiscal year (July to Dec 2017) we have exported 240,000 Metric Tons of rice amounting to US$85 Million. He said we need to focus on the issues and problems and urged the govt to help rectify them and stressed upon making a strategy to help rice exporters in future to enhance rice export. He also expressed his concerns on the decline of rice exports to China, which once was the 2nd largest destination for Pakistani rice exporters. As at the end of December 2017, only 174,000 metric tons of rice valuing US$56.8 million has been exported to China. He requested the government authorities to take serious notice of the declining rice exports to China and take urgent measures to check this declining trend and help enhance rice exports to China.
He said that Iran and Saudi Arabia are the major buyers of Basmati Rice and exporters are hopeful that after resolving the payment problems/banking channel with Iran, Pakistani Basmati Rice will get a significant boast which was facing severe decline since last three years. Rafique informed that this year demand of rice has increased in international market and rates of Pakistani Rice are cheaper than our competitors in Thailand and Vietnam. The international buyers are keeping an eye on Pakistan for its competitive rates, he added. "We are hopeful that this year we will see remarkable growth in Pakistani rice exports," he said.
He further said that rice exporters are also putting extra efforts in order to fetch valuable foreign exchange for the country and making huge investments for installing world's latest equipment, machinery and most modern technology for value addition in rice.