April 20, 2008	Sunday	Rabi-us-Sani 13, 1429

KARACHI, April 19: Amid fast depleting stocks and soaring prices of all varieties of rice, small and medium traders and exporters have totally been wiped out from the scene.

There have been closures of small and medium companies involved in rice trade, resulting in job loss to thousands of daily wagers involved handling, loading and process of the produce at different stages.

However, what is perturbing is the indifferent attitude of the government at a time when most of the rice-producing countries have almost imposed ban on export of all varieties of rice to protect their domestic consumers, a leading rice exporter told Dawn on Saturday.

Despite the fact that rice traders and exporters have time and again been demanding of the government to intervene to save rice trade, no worth mentioning move has come from Islamabad, so far, to protect national interests, another rice trader lamented.“As a result of this, Irri-6 prices during the last couple of days soared to Rs42 per kg from Rs36 or Rs42,000 per ton from Rs36,000.

In the world market, Irri-6 is presently being quoted at $800 to 900 per ton from $700 a week back. Similarly, Basmati rice has surged to an unprecedented level at Rs85 per kg.

Due to strong demand, Basmati rice in the world market touched historic high at $2,000 per ton.

As rice market has become highly volatile, small and medium-sized traders have been pushed out, and presently the market is under full control of hoarders, profiteers and smugglers who have huge funds from other sectors of the economy as well as banks. The cheap finance provided by the State Bank of Pakistan in the shape of export refinance scheme is one of the factors which are encouraging big traders and exporters to flourish.

Even though rice traders have been suggesting various measures to the government to protect the domestic and export market of rice, hardly any move has come forward from the government, said a rice exporter, Zulfikar Thaver.

He said way back when rice harvesting started in November last year, negative things began to emerge because of deep-rooted crisis in world rice trade, influenced by food inflation in most of poor countries, like Pakistan.

Mr Thaver reiterated that the government should immediately impose total ban on export of non-basmati rice and fix minimum export price (MEP) for basmati rice.

“Only this way, the domestic market and export market will be protected.”

He urged the government to take immediate steps to check rampant smuggling of rice, on both sides of the borders and also try to bring out the produce in the open market by taking stern action against hoarders, profiteers and smugglers.

Responding to a question, he said rapid rise in rice prices had totally wiped out small and medium traders and exporters who could not enter into any deal domestically or internationally owing to highly volatile market situation.

Another leading rice exporter of Irri-6 Mahmood Moulvi called upon the government to procure all available rice stocks and hand them over the Pakistan Agricultural Storage and Supplies Corporation (Passco).

He said this would help stabilise prices in the domestic market and ensure better and higher prices in the world market.

Passco should also be given the task of handling world market and be asked to export in small packing and at time when prices take a fresh rise.

He, however, strongly recommended that rice export in bulk be immediately banned and only small packing of 10 or 20kgs be allowed.

“Can you believe that on Thursday, I loaded 15,000 tons of Irri-6 rice on PNSC ship Hyderabad and another ship, Sibi, is loading another 15,000 tons which is expected to sail out on Monday,” he maintained.

“This means within five days I alone exported 30,000 tons,” said Mr Mahmood.Due to strong world demand for rice, he said our stocks would totally finish by May end whereas normally we used to export throughout the year, and at the most close our season for export is August every year.

He said only small packing should be allowed for export or the government could also impose export duty of 20 to 25 per cent to control prices in the domestic market.