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Curbs on non-basmati rice export may go

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: Finance Minister P. Chidambaram on Monday hinted at withdrawal of the “temporary” ban on non-basmati rice exports in the wake of prospects of a good kharif output.

Inaugurating the new export facility of Tilda Riceland at Gurgaon (Haryana) near here, Mr. Chidambaram said: “I know that we were forced to put temporary constraints on certain kinds of rice...hopefully these restrictions can be removed as early as possible.”

In April this year, the government, it may be recalled, had banned exports of non-basmati rice as a part of its series of initiatives aimed at containing the runaway increase in food prices.

Mr. Chidambaram pointed out that this was the first time that three problems in the global economy came together — high prices of fuel and food and financial flows — and put strain on the country which forced the government to impose restrictions. “We know that these restrictions hurt farmers, traders, millers, exporters and consumers. But these restrictions are indeed temporary,” he said.

However, the Minister also made it clear that the lifting of the curbs was only a possibility. “I am not giving you any date and I am not promising you anything, but things will ease and we will be able to remove these temporary restrictions,” he said.

As a first step though, Mr. Chidambaram noted that the government had already permitted export of Pusa 1121 — a non-basmati rice variety — a couple of weeks ago in view of a record rice procurement of over 27 million tonne during 2007-08 season ending September.

As per initial reports, rice production is likely to be in excess of the 96.43 million tonne recorded in the previous year and some other varieties in addition to Pusa 1121 may also be allowed for export, according to a senior Commerce Ministry official.

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