Islamabad: First time in the history Pakistan has started importing rice from India.
Pakistani buyers have placed the first import order for at least 2,500 tonnes rice, while almost 100 tonnes have reached the markets in Punjab.
It’s expected that the traders would further place orders for imports as the commodity in Indian market was available at cheaper rates than Vietnam, Thailand and other countries.
“This was a major development in the history as the Indian commodity was coming to Pakistan, despite having a huge stock in the country,” said CEO Harvest Tradings, Ahmad Jawad in a statement here on Monday.
He said the reason behind the import of rice despite having huge local stock was the major difference in price of the commodity as India had reduced the bench mark price of rice drastically.
“Though the development would badly hit the role of middle man interims of profit, the imports of cheaper rice especially basmati from outside the border would make competition in the country in terms of price and may benefit the retail customers” Jawad remarked.
He, however was of the view that Pakistani basmati rice would retain its importance in the domestic market owing to its special taste.
The government had allowed limited exports of non-basmati rice after a bumper crop in 2010-11. Earlier, India had banned exports of rice, except the costlier basmati variety, to beef up supplies in the domestic market and cool down soaring prices in April 2008.
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