Centre may consider introducing minimum export price for rice exports

On Tuesday, food secretary Sanjeev Chopra explicitly denied any plans to restrict exports of parboiled rice, the only permitted variety of non-basmati rice for export

The Centre may be considering a minimum export price (MEP) for a host of specialty rice, including the basmati variety, to ensure that unscrupulous traders don’t ship excess quantities abroad.

India had banned export of all non-basmati white rice a few weeks ago to check domestic price rise but it allowed exports of basmati and parboiled rice.

Trade sources said though the ban impacted all varieties of non-basmati, some traders may be trying to ship in high quality non-basmati rice as basmati to cash in on the high global demand for the variety.

In this, MEP rice varieties such as