NEW DELHI: India is considering relaxing curbs on overseas sales of non-basmati rice, days after scrapping a floor price for exports of a premium grade, potentially boosting global supply of the grain that feeds billions of people.
The nation - which ranks as the world’s biggest rice shipper - has limited sales abroad for more than a year in a bid to contain domestic prices.
Bloomberg News reported in July that India was planning to relax curbs on some varieties to avoid a glut in the country before the new crop arrives in October.
"That’s under consideration,” India’s Food Secretary Sanjeev Chopra said in New Delhi on Wednesday (Sept 18), referring to current restrictions on several varieties of non-basmati rice.
"These things are very dynamic and we will take an appropriate decision” depending on the country’s requirements and available stockpiles, he told reporters.
India last week moved to abolish the minimum export price of basmati rice to increase its competitiveness in the global market and expand exports.
Any further efforts to remove export hurdles could help cool benchmark Asian rice prices, which reached the highest in more than 15 years in January and remain historically elevated.
That would be good news for some countries in West Africa and the Middle East that usually rely on imports from India.
The South Asian nation began prohibiting or adding taxes on key rice varieties in 2022 in an effort to shore up local supplies and quell food inflation ahead of national elections.
While the move was largely successful in stabilising prices, US Department of Agriculture data show that India is now saddled with record stockpiles.
Loosening the limits could both help ease that glut and soothe import bills in countries from Indonesia to Senegal.
Indian farmers are in the midst of sowing their main rice crop following good monsoon rainfall.
Plantings have been higher than a year earlier and the grain will be collected from late September.
Rice exports from the country fell 22% from a year earlier to 4.06 million tons in the first three months of the fiscal year that started on April 1, according to government data.
Chopra also said that the government will take a call on revising ethanol rates and the minimum sale price of sugar.
India introduced the floor rate in 2018 to help the industry recover its sugar production cost and clear pending cane price dues of farmers. It also fixes prices of ethanol that is made from sugar and its juice.
The government will also increase supplies of wheat under the so-called "Prandhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana” by 3.5 million tons for the year through March 2025, he said, without elaborating. - Bloomberg
(Updates to add details throughout.)
