ISLAMABAD, Feb 7: The Rice Advisory Board (RAB), headed by Caretaker Food Minister Mohammad Isa Jan Baloch, on Thursday proposed an unhindered export of rice.

The RAB proposal came just two weeks after the caretaker Prime Minister Mohammedmian Soomro stated that export of rice would be encouraged only after meeting the domestic needs.

Unchecked export of rice has already created a serious shortage of the commodity in the domestic market and has doubled retail prices.

In November last alone, rice export witnessed a growth of over 19 per cent. Pakistan produced 5.56 million tons of rice this year, including 2.5 million tons of Basmati, while the country’s annual consumption is 2.5 million tons.

Growers and exporters are now demanding a free hand to export rice even though local prices of various rice varieties witnessed a 100pc increase over the last few months and analysts fear a looming rice crisis.

Other rice-producing countries in the region, such as India and Vietnam, have taken measures to discourage rice exports.

The Indian government issued a notification fixing minimum rate of $500 per ton for exporting coarse variety of rice.

In the international market, the same variety is being sold at $375 per ton. So, it is an indirect ban.

However, the RAB is of the view that there was a fairly large exportable surplus in the country and it had no plans to follow the Indian model.

The board also stressed the need for strengthening the rice research institutions of the country and producing more by reverting to latest technology.

Secretary, Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock (Minfal) Ziaur Rehman, and officials of the Rice Exporters Association of Pakistan (REAP) and rice research institutes of Punjab and Sindh attended the meeting.

It was also decided to take practical measures at the provincial level to control aflatoxine and Khapra Beetle issues in the rice.

During their Jan 24 meeting with Mr Soomro, representatives of REAP had admitted that while rice exports increased by 135 per cent in the last decade, production of the crop had gone up only by six per cent during the same period.

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 had told the prime minister.