KARACHI, July 23: Pakistan can boost its rice export to $1 billion easily by exploring potential African market but exporters will have to do aggressive marketing for selling the commodity to this region, said Hameed Asghar Kidwai, Roving Ambassador for Sub-Saharah Region.

The total size of African market where all sort of goods are being imported is $150 billion but Pakistan’s share stands at a meagre $530 million.

Speaking at a dinner hosted by Rice Exporters Association of Pakistan (REAP), Southern Zone, here on Friday, Mr Kidwai said that there was also great potential for parboil rice in African countries but Pakistan’s presence was negligible.

He suggested that the rice exporters should adopt latest marketing techniques and also pay frequent visits to African countries to keep themselves abreast with the trends in the market.

He said when he was Ambassador to Kenya the export of rice from Pakistan stood at 20,000 tons which now increased to 200,000 tons.

“I even managed to convince Indian rice importers in Kenya to do business with Pakistan and now a number of Indians are importing rice from Pakistan which also helped to increase export volume of rice. He added that Tanzania and Senegal had a market of 250,000 and 450,000 tons and this could also be explored.

Exporters drew his attention towards new trade policy where there is no mention of extension of freight subsidy. He assured to convince the government to continue with freight subsidy, which ends on September 30, 2005. He also noted the problem of trademark and assured to resolve it at the earliest because it was damaging Pakistani market.

He stressed upon exporters to enhance their parboil rice capacity because there was a handsome demand and around one million tons were being exported to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Middle Eastern countries.

Earlier, REAP Chairman Abdul Rahim Janoo said that Pakistan’s rice export earnings during 2004-05 increased by 41 per cent to record $933 million, which stood higher by $308 million over the last year.

He said that despite the fact there was no increase in the export volume which stood around 2.1 million tons the higher earnings were resulted out of value-addition and new markets. Out of this quantity around 0.930 million tons were of Basmati rice worth about $493 million and 1.2 million tons of non-basmati, including Irri-6, which fetched $440.70 million.

Exporters complained that in the absence of research to enhance per acre yield, the total rice production had been stagnant for the last four years at 4.6 million tons which did not allow them to export more.

There is a strong demand from exporters to privatize rice research and development institutions, particularly one located at Dhokri, which has almost stopped producing new seeds or varieties. However, research is going on at Kalashah Kako Institute where Dr Mushtaq Shah is working on some new varieties and seeds.

In the absence of any research and development, Mr Janoo said, Sindh which produced around 500,000 tons of Basmati rice (PK 198) last year produced only 40,000 tons this year.