Rice exports from India, the world's second largest grower of the grain, may fall this year as gains in the rupee make overseas shipments less competitive and domestic consumption increases. | |
| Exports in the year ended March 31, 2008 may drop at least 20 per cent from 3.6 million metric tonnes shipped last year, said R.S. Seshadri, director of New Delhi-based producer Tilda Riceland. |
| |
| Reduced shipments from India may help Thailand, Vietnam and Pakistan boost their share of the global rice market and extend last year's 28 per cent gain in prices on the Chicago Board of Trade. The rupee has gained more than 8 per cent against the dollar this year to its highest in almost nine years. |
| |
| "The advantage we had over exporters from Pakistan and Vietnam has eroded because of the rupee's appreciation,'' said Seshadri by phone yesterday from Brussels. The US currency has dropped 6.1 per cent against the baht this year and is little changed against Vietnam's dong and Pakistan's rupee. |
| |
| The gains in prices of wheat, a competing cereal, prompted some consumers in the world's second most populous nation to eat more rice, reducing the amount available for export to the West Asia, West Africa and Sri Lanka, R.C. Bhimjyani, director at Mumbai-based RT Exports said. |
| |
| "The bigger challenge now is to sustain production to meet the local demand,'' he said. "Rising consumption will affect exports.'' |
| |
| A stronger rupee hasn't curbed the demand for India's Basmati rice. The nation may ship 1 million tonnes of the fragrant, long-grain rice, little changed from a year ago, said Anil Adlakha, executive director of the Rice Exporters Association. |
| |
| India supplies basmati rice, grown in the foothills of the Himalayas, to West Asia and Europe. It competes with Pakistan, which is the only other producer of the variety. Saudi Arabia is the top customer for India's basmati rice. |
| |
| Indian parboiled rice sells at an average $275-to-$300 a metric tonne, while basmati rice fetches $800 to $1,000 a tonne, RT Exports' Bhimjyani said. India may produce 91.05 million tonnes of rice in the year ended June, little changed from a year earlier, according to the agriculture ministry. The nation consumes about 90 per cent of its production. |
| |
|
| |
