New Delhi: India’s rice exports jumped to 80.37% year-on-year in the period to 11.58 million tones, with major demand coming from Africa, Middle East, the USA and European Union, industry bodies said.
The total value of the rice exports including basmati and non basmati rice increased by 44% to Rs. 44,894 crore compared with Rs. 31,194 crore in the corresponding period last fiscal, said Vinod Kaul, executive director, All India Rice Exporters Association.
He said that according to the Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics, India exported 8.2 million tones of non-basmati rice and 3.38 million tone basmati rice in the first nine months of this financial year, up by 129% and 29% compared with the corresponding period last fiscal.
Looking at the current exports, rice exports can easily touch 15 million tone with basmati rice at 5 million tones and non-basmati rice exports to cross 10 million tone , said Kaul. “We expect a surge in demand in February and March which is the peak export period,” he said.
In 2019-20 India had exported 4.54 million tone of basmati rice and 5 million tone of non basmati rice.
The exports will be at a historical high this year and the way it looks we can achieve this figure in 2021-22 too, said BV Krishna, president of the Rice Exporters Association. “This fiscal non- basmati rice exports will easily exceed 11 million from our earlier target of 10 million tones. In January alone we will be able to ship close to one million tones and have orders of another two million tones to be delivered till March,” Krishna said.
Exporters said that there was congestion at the Kakinada port in Andhra Pradesh with as many as 20 ships berthed. “If the situation is resolved a higher export figure of another half million tones can be achieved in the next two months,” said Krishna.
Major demand for basmati rice was coming from the Middle East which accounts for up to 84% of the rice variety shipped out of India followed by the US and European Union. Africa is the largest importer of Indian non-basmati rice, accounting for about 70% of the rice variety with major demand coming from Ivory Coast, Benin, Togo, Niger and Liberia. In the past one year, Bangladesh, China , Indonesia, Vietnam and Malaysia have become an important buyer for Indian non-basmati rice.