ISLAMABAD, Jan 24: Caretaker Prime Minister Mohammedmian Soomro has said export of rice, which registered a robust growth in December, will be encouraged only after ensuring needs of the domestic consumers.

He said this in a meeting on Thursday with a 19-member delegation of the Rice Exporters Association of Pakistan (Reap) held to review production and export performance of the commodity.

The premier emphasised upon proper monitoring of rice production and its distribution in order to determine the exact domestic needs as well as the surplus, which could be exported.

The Reap members admitted in the meeting that while the rice exports had increased by 135 per cent in the last decade, the rice production increased only by 6 per cent during the same period.

The target for the rice export this year has been projected at $1.5 billion and it would cross the $2.5 billion mark by 2010, the association members told the prime minister.

Mr Soomro stressed the need for increasing the yield and improving the quality of rice to meet the domestic needs as well as the requirement for export. He assured the government’s full support to the growers, the millers and the exporters in their efforts to achieve the desired targets.

He laid special emphasis on research to improve the quality of seeds of various crops including rice. The research has to be conducted with the objective that both the yield and quality of the crop improves to meet domestic and export requirements. He said the quality of seeds be improved in consultation with all the stakeholders.

He also asked the ministry of food and agricultural to explore the possibility of developing and procuring seeds suitable for Pakistani climate from foreign companies to help increase the yield and improve the quality of major agricultural crops.

This aspect, he said, seems to be a fast track option to help resolve the issues confronting the agricultural sector and related industries.

“Besides improving the quality of seeds we need to motivate the growers towards mechanised farming and harvesting,” he said adding that process of mechanisation should involve local technology, which is equally good and much cheaper.

Mr. Soomro pointed out that the whole chain of rice production starting from sowing to harvesting, drying to husking and finally polishing to marketing needed focused attention of all the stakeholders.

The prime minister said that in order to meet the requirements of the skilled and trained workers for the rice Mills, the Minfal might coordinate with Navtec and other concerned organisations to organise training courses. He also asked the Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP) to hold workshops to train workers as well as exporters in rice processing, marketing and export.

He also asked the TDAP to explore the possibility, in consultation with the State Bank, of increasing credit facilities and extending period of return from six months to a year since the price of rice is constantly increasing and the marketing the rice has to be done after one year of storage.

The REAP in the meeting asked for strengthening the research efforts in order to increase the yield per acre and also to improve the quality as per local and international demand. They mentioned that Pakistan was the third largest exporter of rice in the world and only focused attention to improve its output would help to sustain this position.