Centre relaxes norms, Basmati rice exports likely to rise

The Central Government relaxed the export parameters for basmati rice, which will help farmers in Uttarakhand and Jammu & Kashmir.

“Grain of rice to be exported shall be more than 6.61 mm of length and ratio of length-to-breadth of the grain shall be more than 3.5 mm," the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) said in a notification.

Earlier, only basmati rice of more than 7 mm-length and a length-to-breadth ratio of more than 3.6 mm was permitted to be exported. “The relaxation on dimension of the grain will help growers of Ranbir and Basmati-370 varieties of the rice that is primarily grown in Jammu and Kashmir and Uttarakhand,” All-India Rice Exporters Association President Vijay Sethia said. Production of these two varieties is estimated at 50,000 tonnes annually.

Further, it is also expected that large basmati rice buyers in the Gulf region may now start buying more from India as the recent floods in Pakistan have severely hit the agriculture activity there.

According to market analysts, such a situation augurs well for the Indian basmati rice exporters as they would be able to serve the continually increasing demand for basmati from West Asia, the US and the UK which have been importing from Pakistan.

Source: http://www.fnbnews.com/article/detnews.asp?articleid=28144&sectionid=34