LAHORE, Jan, 30: Pakistan's rice exports are facing a tough time in the international market because of cheap price quoted by Chinese competitors and increase in import duties by three African countries, claim exporters from the Punjab.

Talking to Dawn on Sunday, some of the rice exporters claimed that the Chinese were offering as much as US$50 less than what Pakistanis were demanding for IRRI-6 variety. The Chinese have offered the same variety at US$180 per ton against Pakistan's US$240.

They feared that if the trend continued in future, Pakistan might soon lose its competitive edge and pushed out of the world market. Prices of exportable rice were driven high by the strong domestic market where prices skyrocketed because of various factors.

A breather came a few days back when the World Food Programme purchased 35,000 ton IRRI-6 rice for North Korea and Sri Lanka. Other than the purchases by the WFP, no major contracts had been signed during the last two weeks and nothing was in the pipeline, they claimed.

"It is virtually impossible to secure any order at current price," said an official of the Rice Exporters Association of Pakistan (REAP). Some of the exporters got a few insignificant orders from places like Madagascar or East African states but nothing mentionable from any other part of the world, he said.

He also feared that future trend might not be favourable for Pakistan. The international price might go down further in February when Pakistan's key competitors -- Burma and Vietnam -- would be in the market with big stocks.

It was not only the price factor pushing Pakistani rice out of the international market, but new duty arrangements by three African countries had also hurt them in a big way, said another REAP member.

As a part of the new regional tariff arrangements under the EAC trading protocol, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda slapped an import duty of 75 per cent against the previous 35 per cent from Jan 1, 2005.

Though the Pakistan government is in a position to bargain hard with the Kenyan authorities, it is yet to inform exporters what it has done or is doing about the issue. Pakistan is the biggest importer of Kenyan tea and can twist its arms if it chooses to.

The commerce ministry was locked in some kind of talks with the Kenyans but the results had not been shared with the exporters, he said. Last year, the traders exported 166,897 metric ton rice to Kenya.

Pakistani rice account for over 77 per cent of Kenyan consumption and Pakistan purchases around 28 per cent of Kenyan tea. During first half of the current fiscal year, Pakistan's exports to Kenya stood at US$57.482 million whereas total imports from Kenya amounted to US$60.403 million.

"Pakistan is the largest importer of the Kenyan tea, whereas it has been exporting mainly wheat, rice, textile goods and woven cotton fabrics," he added. Pakistan's total exports of 1.9 million ton during the year 2003-04 consisted of 800,000 ton basmati rice and 1.1 million ton non-basmati.

Out of it, Kenya imported 175,000 ton during the last fiscal year followed by Tanzania with 18,000 ton and Uganda with 3,500 ton, making a total shipment of non-basmati rice to these countries around 200,000 ton.

Keeping in view the export of non-basmati rice, Pakistan is expected to lose 18 per cent of the total 1.1 million ton export. If the total export of 1.9 million ton is taken into account, it will be losing 10.5 per cent market in these three countries.

All these factors showed that the chances of retrieval of the situation vis-a-vis Kenya were bright but again, it would not bring back a competitive edge to Pakistani rice exports, he said.

The exporters said that during October-mid-January, Pakistan exported 350,000 ton IRRI-6 rice. In the domestic market, the variety was quoted at around Rs1,350 per 100kg and the traders had been quoting FOB prices for IRRI-6 at US$238-240 per ton.