In the midst of the epidemic, rice exports from India have increased by 70 percent. With this increase, 75 lakh tonnes of rice were exported in the first half of the current financial year. The main reason for the increase in rice exports was the double shipment of non-basmati due to strong demand from West Africa and South-East Asia countries. Monetarily, the increase in rice exports increased 36 per cent in dollar terms to $ 108 million. However, this increase in rupee was more. Rice exports in rupees rose 43 per cent to Rs 30,609 crore.
Exporters say that this figure of exports would have been even higher if the movement of goods continued uninterrupted. In this financial year, there is an increase of 60% in rice exports i.e. 15.5 million rice exports.
Increase in non-basmati rice shipments
BV Krishna Rao, President, Rice Exports Association, said that the way non-basmati rice shipments have increased in the first half of the current financial year, it is estimated that their exports could be 10 million tonnes in the financial year 2020-21. is. This will be a record. In the first half of this financial year, non-basmati shipments stood at 50.8 lakh tonnes, while in the first half of the last financial year, 50.4 lakh tonnes were exported. Earlier, 86 lakh non-basmati rice was exported in the financial year 2017-18.
African countries increased purchases
Countries such as Benin, Cape Verde, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal and Sierra Leone of West Africa have traditionally purchased non-basmati rice from India. Rao says that the euro strengthened against the dollar during the Corona epidemic, due to which these countries increased purchases with India. These countries pay in West African CFA franc currency. The West African currency was at 626 against the dollar on 23 May, which is currently at 553.
China also increased shopping
China has also increased rice purchases from India last month. He ordered 100% broken non-basmati rice as it is the cheapest in the global market. Between April and September this year, only 84 tonnes of rice was exported to China. China is the world’s largest producer and importer of rice and it imposed a ban on the import of rice from India, which lifted this ban a few years ago but tightened its standards.
Corona epidemic ended the rivalry
In the midst of low rice production in Thailand and the Corona epidemic, the policies he formulated for his country’s food security exports helped to increase rice exports to India. According to Rao, in the case of Parboiled Rice (rice partially boiled and dried from it), India’s only rival was Thailand and it was beneficial for India after its removal. Apart from this, there is the demand for this rice from Indonesia and Malaysia and they used to buy it from Thailand earlier. The share of this rice in non-basmati shipments is 30-40 per cent.
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Basmati rice demand from Middle East countries
Exporters of basmati rice also expect shipments to be 15-20 per cent higher than last time in this financial year. In the last financial year, 4.5 million tonnes of basmati rice were exported. In the first half of this financial year, their exports grew by 28 per cent to 2.4 million tonnes. An exporter says that even if in the second half of this financial year, Basmati rice exports were same as in the same period of last time, even then the exports in the whole financial year will be 12% higher than the previous financial year. Exporters are confident about the increasing demand from Middle-East countries that its exports will be better in the next four-five months.
Rice exported at a lower price this year
Recently, the exporters of rice had a lot of problem with the railways as FCI was being given priority in the transportation of food grains during the lockdown period. The figure of exports has definitely increased but the price of each ton has come down this year. The reason for this is that many exporters reduced their prices to get more and more orders. Basmati rice prices fell to $ 890 (Rs 65,920) per ton during the first half of the current financial year from $ 1064 (Rs 78,808) per ton during the same period of the previous fiscal. non-basmati rice fell from $ 403 (Rs. 29,849) per tonne to $ 385 (Rs. 28,516) per tonne.
Source: www.financialexpress.com