NEW DELHI, Dec 2: India, the world’s biggest exporter of rice, has this year found a new buyer in China in decades. And China, despite being the biggest importer of rice in the world, never accepted Indian rice in the last three decades and stuck with its all-weather friend Pakistan or Thailand, Vietnam and Myanmar for the supply of the commodity.
Amidst the border stand-off in Ladakh, China for the first time in last three decades has started importing Indian rice this year due to tightening supplies and an offer from India of sharply discounted prices, Indian industry officials said.
According to the Indian Rice Exporters Association, India offered to sale rice to China around $300 per tonne as against its traditional exporters demanding about $330 per tonne. These countries also had limited surplus this year to export rice in bulk forcing China, which import about four million tonnes annually, to turn to India first time in three decades. China so far avoided Indian rice on alleged “quality issues.”
Indian traders have contracted to export 100,000 tonnes of broken rice for December –February shipment and the exporters are confident that after watching quality of Indian rice China’s import order would increase next year.
(Manas Dasgupta)