Pakistan likely to export 3m tons rice, despite floods

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan will have up to three million tons of rice available for export this year despite the worst floods in its history that damaged nearly 28 per cent of the crop, traders said on Wednesday.

“The damage assessment is still ongoing, but even in the worst case scenario, we will have an output of between 4 and 4.5 million tons,” Malik Muhammad Jahangir, chairman of the Rice Exporters Association of Pakistan, told Reuters.

“The situation is not so bad, as we have stocks from the previous crop also. I think we can still export between 2.5 and 3 million tons.”

“Despite floods damage, we will be having a surplus of up to three million tons that has to be exported as it cannot be consumed here,” said Muhammad Azhar Akhtar, former REAP president and owner of Mazco Industries (Pvt) Ltd.

Floods have affected more than 708,000 hectares (1.7 million acres) of rice out of the total 2.64 million hectares, according to government estimates. Production losses are feared at around two million tons.

The government had set an output target of six million tons from the 2010-11 crop. The country consumes about 2.2 million tons annually and is the world’s fifth largest exporter of the grain.

Pakistan has about half a million tons of milled rice from the previous crop and mainly exports long grain Basmati rice to the Middle East, Europe and Asia.

A US Department of Agriculture attache report, issued on August 31, revised rice production estimates for Pakistan to 4.4 million tons from the 2010-11 crop. The report, which is not official USDA data, likewise reduced Pakistan’s rice exports for the year to an estimated 2.3 million tons.

Rice is Pakistan’s third biggest crop after wheat and cotton and contributes about 1.6 per cent to the gross domestic product. The country had a bumper crop of 6.7 million tons of milled rice in 2009-10 and exported about 4.5 million tons, traders said.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 9^th, 2010.