KARACHI, May 20: High domestic prices and depleting stocks kept the rice exports under pressure in the past week and are likely to keep business dull in coming weeks, dealers said on Monday.

They said domestic prices were likely to stay high owing to low stocks available in the market, which had almost stopped the exports.

Traders said lower-than-expected output from the latest crop had raised domestic prices and foreign buyers were not willing to pay high Pakistani export prices.

Pakistan has scaled down its rice output estimate for fiscal 2001-02 (July-June) to four million tons from 4.74 million tons because of irrigation water shortages during the growing season.

The country’s annual domestic rice consumption is around 2.3 million tons.

Haji Majeed, a rice exporter in Karachi, said high domestic prices against low world prices had left Pakistani exporters unable to compete with Southeast Asian exporters.

“Frankly we do not have any rice available in the market to export.... Only 130,000 tons of rice from last year’s crop is in the market, which can only cater to the domestic needs,” he added.

He said orders from international buyers were also negligible as Pakistani offers were higher by $35 to $40 per ton than those of other rice exporting countries.

“Presently very few exporters are shipping their old commitments, and there are no fresh orders,” Majeed added.

The main buyers of Pakistani rice are Iraq, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and several East African countries.—Reuters