January 06, 2009	Tuesday	Muharram 08, 1430

LAHORE, Jan 5: The Rice Exporters Association of Pakistan (REAP) on Monday threatened to go on strike from Jan 15 if the Trading Corporation of Pakistan (TCP) did not withdraw tender for procurement of 300,000 tonnes of rice.

REAP vice-chairman Mian Haroonur Rasheed gave the threat at a press conference and claimed that the association had been asking the government to keep the TCP and Passco out of rice trade, but to no avail.

Both these organisations were artificially keeping rice price up and the association, under the circumstances, had no option but to go on strike, he said.

Flanked by other office-bearers Tariq Aziz, Masood Iqbal, Chaudhry Muhammad Din and Amjad Butt, Rasheed said that exporters had established credibility of Pakistani rice in the international market after years of effort and labour. The exporters now fear that export through TCP or Passco might meet the same fate which was witnessed by the Rice Export Corporation of Pakistan, he said.

Rice trade was a delicate business because preserving the crop was a complicated process. The Passco intervention was not timely as 60 per cent crop had left the farmers. The corporation had signed agreement with more than 100 rice mills for “vested interests,” he alleged.

Neither the TCP nor the Passco had infrastructure to export rice and any bid by them would result in loss of billions of rupees, apart from earning bad name for Pakistani rice sector, he feared.

The private sector started rice export in the early 90s and it was given export target of $300 million. During the last 18 months, the rice export had touched $2 billion. The export figure would further improve in the next six months, he hoped.

Launching official agencies at point o success hardly made any sense, Rasheed said and added: “The rice procured by Passco was not up to the mark either; they were fresh and raw whereas foreign buyers demand at least one year old rice. The price on which both these official agencies were procuring rice hardly makes any sense, especially if the cost of processing and bank loans’ mark-up is added to it.”

He appealed to the president and prime minister to withdraw both agencies from rice trade and save the credibility of rice exporters.