June 25, 2006	Sunday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 28, 1427

ISLAMABAD, June 24: The government either seemed helpless or lacking interest to convince Mexican government to withdraw the ban imposed on rice import from Pakistan around six years ago, it is learnt.

The Mexican government had imposed a ban on import of all kinds of rice on the plea that the Pakistani rice carried a fungus named--Kapra Beetle--which was not suitable for consumption on health reasons. Interestingly, the fungus is only carried in grains and not in rice but again it led to complete suspension of export of rice to the Mexican market.

A senior official on condition of anonymity told Dawn on Saturday that the ban was levied on the basis of a report prepared by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), which mentioned in its report the presence of the said fungus in Pakistani rice. “It is just a lame excuse because actually Mexico wanted to provide protection to its farmers, which was against the international trading norms,” the official added.

This reveals the inefficiency of the government, which had literally failed to take up the rice issue at the appropriate level, such as to the dispute settlement body (DSB) of the World Trade Organisation to challenge the decision of the Mexican government. It has resulted in a heavy loss to the Pakistani exporters in the shape of loosing a market.

The Mexican government had imposed a similar ban on rice imports from Thailand a few years ago. But the Thai government challenged the ban in the DSB of the WTO, which declared the decision of the Mexican government unjustified.

According to a rice exporter, although Mexico was not a major market for Pakistani rice exports but “it gives a wrong signal to the world market about the quality of our rice.”

“Why we are compromising on the quality of our products? We all know that Pakistan is major exporter of rice to the European Union member countries, especially the UK,” he remarked. Europe has very tough standards about the quality of rice, he said and added that “if Pakistani rice meets those standards then it means that the ban was illegal.”

When contacted Secretary Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock (Minfal) M. Ismail Qureshi told this reporter that his ministry was working on the issue. “We are preparing an action plan in this regard. It is very technical issue,” he added.

When asked to comment on the issue, Secretary Commerce Syed Asif Shah said that the Mexican government had sent a request to his ministry about sending their experts to examine the processing, storage of rice in Pakistan.