ISLAMABAD, Aug 3: Pakistan has failed to make any significant inroads into Saudi markets for maintaining its share in export of different varieties of rice.

Well-placed sources told Dawn on Tuesday the constant decline in export of rice to the Saudi markets was one of various reasons which was yet to be addressed by the government and stakeholders.

"We need to discuss the reasons, why failure to penetrate continues and what could be done to remedy the situation," the sources questioned. On the other hand, Indian exports of rice are increasing. The US rice also maintained a strong presence in the Saudi market. While Pakistan continued in a low third position as supplier, added the sources.

According to the sources, Irri-6 parboil could easily penetrate this market with good marketing and at much better price than that was generally achieved for this variety in sales to West African destinations as raw and with high brokens.

The sources said no tangible increase was seen in export of sela (parboil). The largest segment still remained blended rice at low price. "This is due to the market perception that Pakistan's is No-2 quality.

Due to this adverse perception in the market at consumer level, expensive promotions of brands have stagnated, needing immense marketing funds to sell," they said.

The sources said: "If Pakistan is to achieve any significant progress in re-capturing the market share, it will need generic promotion of Pakistani origin, reviewing our product mix and focusing on our production/sales, creating the perception in importers that what was declared, what was shipped and labelled on bags."

"Unfortunately many bags of pure Irri-9 or 386 were shipped out and seen in the Saudi markets labelled as pure Pakistani basmati rice," the sources said. This was manifested by complaints received from the Saudis and were discussed even in the Rice Exporters Association of Pakistan (REAP) meeting but with no remedial actions taken except lip-service.

"The association had suggested that the Saudi ambassador should be invited to visit quality research centre to see for himself the "high quality of work" being done. Will this approach satisfy the complaints received or are we rejecting the complaints as false?" remarked the sources.

According to the sources, the result was that consumers could not know the difference in actual 'pure Super' supplied from Pakistan lying on same shelf along with non-basmati bags labelled as basmati from Pakistan at much lower price.

"Therefore, there is no real possibility of increasing sales of Super basmati pure rice while Indians continue to dominate the Saudi consumers' mind as best quality basmati rice.

Till we are able to put our act together, marketing in Saudi market will be simply commodity-oriented and that too with the drag that comes with label of No-2 quality supplier," they said.

The current year's increase in rice export was directly a result of increase in production area in Punjab and maximization of yield per acre also in Punjab. That was the only reason why total exports of rice have crossed the $600 million mark for the first time. If proper work was done at the export level, then this could have been higher than $700 million, added the sources.