India’s Basmati Export Seen Losing Flavour.

With stiff competition from Pakistan, payment crisis from Iran and European countries imposing ‘unreasonable’ pesticides standards, India’s basmati rice exports are expected to decline sharply during the current fiscal, a export promotion body said on Monday.

According to All India Rice Exporters Association (AIREA) president, Vijay Setia, aromatic rice exports may dip by 10 per cent in terms of volume and decline by as high as 20 per cent in value terms.

In value terms, export of basmati rice had crossed Rs 12,000 crore last fiscal against Rs 9,476 crore achieved during 2008-09. In terms of volume, exports increased to 2.2 million tonne last fiscal from 1.6 million tonne during 2008-09, a rise of more than 25 per cent. Setia said rice exports could fall to 1.8 million tonne this fiscal.

In addition, Indian exporters are not keen to export basmati to Iran—one of their biggest markets—due to delays in payment on account of sanctions imposed by the US and United Nations against the West Asian nation over its suspected nuclear programme.

During the last few years, he said, Iran has emerged as a key destination for basmati rice as close to 35 per cent of India’s total exports are shipped to the West Asian country.

In terms of value, the aromatic rice exports were down by Rs 2,500 crore during the first 10 months of the current fiscal. The value realisation was $1,060 per tonne in the first ten months of the current fiscal, compared to $1,160 a tonne during the same period last year, Setia said. Recently, the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority had stated that the slower start to the exports of the premium rice from the country is attributed to comfortable stocks with the agencies involved because of higher exports achieved last year.

Source : indianexpress.com