ALTHOUGH the share of the parboiled rice in the country’s total rice exports is growing and can further be raised by 15 per cent with value addition, its current export orders are in jeopardy because of the energy crisis.

Parboiled rice, also called ‘golden sella’, is the variety that undergoes a hydrothermal steaming process to partially boil the un-husked rice. This process enhances the strength of rice grains for better cooking results. Sella rice has a special place in Afghan, Iranian and Asian cuisines.

In the past, it was prepared manually by using conventional methods. Now it has become an industrial process and in Pakistan the processing is being done on modern machines since 1999.

Pakistan’s parboiled rice is considered, in terms of quality, at par with that of Thai and Vietnamese rice. Saudi Arabia, the USA and Africa are major markets for this rice variety.

The parboiled rice industry in Sindh, in particular, is in dire straits at present due to lack of gas supply and power load-shedding. In most cases, the owners had invested huge amounts in their units by importing modern plants during the last ten years. But the government’s indifference, according to industry sources, has led to shut-down of some 160 units out of 200 in the province over the last two years. Their machinery now stands idle, gathering rust. The president of the Union of Small and Medium Enterprises (UNISAME) has drawn the government’s attention towards the plight of Sindh’s parboiled rice industry, seeking urgent measures for its revival.

To overcome fuel shortage, the manufactures have installed generators in their plants, but it has made the production expensive and the earnings sometimes fail to cover this cost. The price of paddy had, meanwhile, also gone up due to costly farm inputs and the millers, as a result, had to remove the husk and make white rice rather than parboiled rice.

In Punjab, the situation is not much different, but is comparatively less painful. Many parboilers of that province prefer to purchase paddy from Sindh and parboil it in their plants.

The demand for this rice variety is increasing worldwide because parboiling improves the nutritional value of the rice and changes its texture. The process drives nutrients, especially thiamine, from the bran into the grain. Because of this, parboiling was adopted by North American rice growers in the early 20th century.

Pakistan has been competing well with India in the global market. On February 14, Pakistan quoted its parboiled 5pc broken long grain rice at $405-415 per tonne, while Indians quoted the same commodity at $400-410 per tonne. At the end of 2013, Pakistani quote for parboiled rice was $420 per tonne while Thai quote was $440 - $450 per tonne.

During the first half of the current fiscal year, non-Basmati rice exports including those of parboiled rice were 1.3m tonnes against 1.26m tonnes recorded in the same period a year ago. (No separate statistics of this variety were available.) In terms of foreign exchange earnings, the figure stood at $522m compared to $519m a year earlier.

On the whole, rice exports rose by 10 per cent during the July-December, 2013 period to 1.597 million tonnes from 1.446m tonnes a year before. According to official figures, the country earned $819m compared to $752m in the same period last fiscal year. The export of basmati rice stood at 274,000 tonnes, fetching higher foreign exchange at $296m, compared to 240,000 tonnes and $233m respectively of the same period last year. This means that basmati rice exports during the period were higher by 14 per cent.

Meanwhile, Pakistan is trying to increase its rice exports to China, now the world’s largest rice importer. A delegation of the Rice Exporters Association of Pakistan (REAP) visited China last month to explore such possibilities. Pakistan has a free trade agreement and currency swap arrangements with China. The delegation is hopeful of an increase in rice exports to China of about 0.7 - 1 million tonnes in 2013-14 as a result of its efforts.

Besides, Pakistani exporters are expecting a significant increase in export of brown rice to the EU in the wake of implementation of the EU's generalised scheme of preferences (GSP). Pakistan has exported about 52,000 tonnes of brown rice to the EU in the current fiscal year so far. It can now export another 250,000 tonnes to the EU markets under the GSP plus facility that has come into effect from January 1, 2014.

India’s rice production in 2013-14 is likely to decline to 100 million tons from last year’s 105 million tons due to adverse weather conditions during the main crop season this year. In 2001, Thailand was the world’s top exporter of parboiled rice at 2-2.5 million tonnes, while Indian exports of this variety in the same year amounted to 500,000 tonnes. However, with the launch of the government’s rice-pledging scheme, Thai exporters were unable compete with India and the country lost its position as the top exporter of parboiled rice.