No rice shipment held at Kenya port

Pakistan supplies more than 4 million tons of rice to nearly 100 countries

The Ministry of Commerce and Textile (Commerce Division), while clarifying a news story titled ‘600 rice containers from Pakistan held up at Kenyan port’, has said that the quality of Pakistani rice is world acclaimed and the country supplies more than 4 million tons to nearly 100 countries.

Pakistan has a state-of-the-art rice milling and processing industry which meets health and safety requirements of even the most stringent markets like Europe and the US, it said.

“It is true that the clearance of shipments of many food products eg sugar, edible oil and rice at Kenyan ports have recently slowed down, after a few shipments from other countries did not meet the health and safety standards. Therefore, the clearance of shipments at Kenyan ports has been made stringent and additional sampling/testing is being done irrespective of the country of origin,” it said.

The ministry denied any shipment from Pakistan had been held at the port for failing to meet the food safety standards of Kenya. 

Published in The Express Tribune, September 25^th, 2018.

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