BEIJING, Oct 28: Pakistan’s rice exports might climb to 2.5 million tons in the 2005/2006 marketing year, with 150,000 tons sold for November and December shipment this week, a senior official from SGS Group said on Friday.

Anjum Varsy, director of operations for SGS in Pakistan, told Reuters the country was hoping to ship that amount, including 1 million tons of Basmati rice, before March. The recent deals were done at about $225 a ton, free-on-board.

Of late, Pakistan has emerged as an aggressive seller of rice, with prices from Thailand, the world’s top exporter, seen high, while Vietnam, the number two exporter, is not offering fresh deals due to damage from a typhoon this month.

Pakistan was likely to buy 400,000 tons of sugar before December or January, Varsy said, as the rain that had benefited the country’s rice crop had damaged its sugar and wheat crops.

Varsy, in charge of quality control, was talking on the sidelines of a rice conference organized by IBC Asia.

He estimated the country had a shortfall of 1.5m tons in sugar, with its annual demand estimated at about 4m tons. It had bought some cargoes from China and Brazil.

On wheat, Varsy said Pakistan had a deficit of about 2 million tons — compared with its annual requirement of about 20 million tons. It had bought wheat from Russia.—Reuters