April 14, 2007	Saturday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 25, 1428

ISLAMABAD, April 13: Pakistan and Mexico have agreed to find solution to the issue of more than a decade old ban on the import of Pakistani rice to Mexican market. Both the countries have now agreed to exchange visits of bilateral experts to resolve the issue of the controversial ban which Mexico has imposed after alleging that Pakistani rice were infected with khupra beetle virus.

Federal Minister for Food, Agriculture and Livestock (Minfal) Sikandar Hayat Bosan here on Friday discussed the issue with the Mexican Foreign Affairs Vice-Minister Maria De Lourdes Aranda Bezaury in a meeting at the agriculture ministry.

A Minfal official told Dawn that the minister had reiterated that the ban had its roots in the Mexican government’s 1995 move of putting a number of countries on a list which were denied access to the market under the Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) measure of the WTO agreement.

Sri Lanka, India, Thailand, Pakistan and a number of other countries were put on the list. And, Pakistan was included in the list without having its rice tested by the Mexican authorities separately.

Pakistani exporters had taken the Mexican move as non-tariff barrier and pressed the government times and again to pursue the matter. But, it was only after President Gen Pervez Musharraf’s visit to Mexico in 2004, when the Pakistani authorities took up the issue and stressed the exchange of agricultural experts to ascertain the Mexican claim, the official said.

Mexico is of the view that it has done nothing wrong by banning the Pakistani rice as every WTO member country are authorised to take steps generally aimed at saving people from diseases that could spread with virus.

But, in her meeting with Mr Bosan, Ms Bezaury also stressed the role of the exchange of agricultural experts to resolve the issue and explore new avenues in the area of agri-business, rice export, training and exchange of agro business between the two countries.

Minfal was of the view that the Mexican’s fears were based on mere hypothesis and that that the Pakistani rice contained no khupra beetle.

Before the ban, Pakistan’s rice export to Mexico amounted to $273 million. Mainly Basmati was exported to that market. The ban had not only cost Pakistan trade related losses but had also tarnished the image of its rice in the international market.

The official said Mexico was a very important country in terms of commerce as it was the 14th largest economy in the world with a GDP of $740 billion and an annual volume of trade of around $400 billion.

He added that Pakistan's exports to Mexico during 2005 were $60 million and imports were $10.961 billion and that there was potential for over $3 billion additional exports from Pakistan.

According to the 2006 report of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations, rice export to Mexico might rise this year following the announcement of the Mexican government that it would revoke a 3.93 per cent and 10.18 per cent anti-dumping duty that it had been imposing on imports of milled, long grain rice from the United States since June 2002. The move follows the rejection of Mexico’s appeal by a WTO panel in November 2005.

In October, Mexico also signed a memorandum of understanding with Pakistan, to lift a 10-year old ban on Pakistani rice imports.