India does not plan to limit rice exports as the world’s biggest exporter of the staple has sufficient stocks and local rates are lower than state-set support prices, trade and government sources said.
India banned wheat exports on May 14, just days after New Delhi prediction record shipments of 10 million tons this year, as a heat wave hit output and sent domestic prices to record highs.
“We have more than sufficient stocks of rice and there is no concern at all in terms of either prices or availability for exports and domestic requirements,”
Said a senior government official involved in the judgement making.
“At this stage, there is no deliberation at all to prohibit rice exports,”
According to the source, who didn’t desire to be named in line with official rules.
Rice exports from India, also the world’s second biggest consumer of the grain, flown to a record 21.2 million tons in the fiscal year to March 2022 from 17.8 million tons the preceding year.
Food Corporation of India:
Rice prices are falling, even as exports increase, as India has enormous stocks and local purchases by the Food Corporation of India (FCI) – the state stockpiler – are increasing, said B.V. Krishna Rao, president of the All India Rice Exporters Association.
Milled and rice paddy stocks at FCI totaled 66.22 million tons in contrast to a target of 13.58 million tons.
“There is no need to put any restriction on rice exports,” Rao said.
“Wheat output and prices were affected due to the war in Ukraine, but … the Black Sea region is neither a major producer nor consumer of rice.”
India’s rice export prices extended sufferers this week to touch $350 to $354 a ton, the lowest in more than five years.
In the crop year to June 2022, India’s rice output hopped to a record 129.66 million tons from 121.1 million tons the preceding year.
Higher output has enforced FCI to buy more rice from domestic farmers.
Taking a record 80.4 million tons of rice paddy from cultivators so far this year compared to 77 million tons over the same period last year.
According to Rao:
“FCI’s procurement is going up, and that is an indication that there’s no shortage, so there is no logic for any ban on rice exports”.