ISLAMABAD, Dec 8: The government has decided to extend the scope of freight subsidy on export to Irri-6 rice to make it competitive in the international market. The decision was taken in a meeting headed by minister of food, agriculture and livestock (Minfal) Sikandar Hayat Bosan here on Thursday. It was decided that the issue would be taken up with the commerce ministry for early approval.

The meeting also decided that immediate steps would be taken to export rice to China as Pakistan could export up to $500 million tons at nominal import duty.

During the meeting, the representatives of ministry of finance, minfal, and the State Bank also agreed to enhance the credit limit of the rice mills.

It was also agreed that ministry of commerce would provide storage facilities to the exporters and millers in TCP godowns. The meeting decided that the shipping ministry would be asked to provide special berths in ports to ensure maximum shipments of rice export consignments.

During the year 2005-06, paddy was cultivated on 2.531 million hectares of land with an estimated production of 5.135 million tons, of which, 2.350 million tons was of Basmati marking 46 per cent of the total production while the remaining 54 per cent were coarse rice varieties.

In Sindh alone, the area under rice cultivation during the current year, was 0.593 million hectares with total production of 1.688 million tons compared to 1.499 million ton last year, registering an increase of 13 per cent.

It was observed that price of paddy declined drastically in the local market due to the bumper crop.