TEHRAN: In a major boost to India’s Basmati rice exports, Iran will issue fresh contracts for rice imports after a seven-month curb.
As part of the decree issued by the agriculture ministry, Iran’s customs officials will be allowed to register new imports orders from December 3, 2015 till June 21, 2016.
Iran is expected to import 6 lakh tonne of rice, a major chunk of it from India, for meeting domestic demand till March, 2016. Trade sources told FE around 3 million tonne of rice is consumed domestically in Iran annually and more than half of which is met through domestic production.
Iran had put restrictions on the rice imports because of surplus grain availability in the country a year back. Of total exports of 3.7 million tonne of Basmati from the country in 2013-14, 1.4 MT was shipped to Iran. Sources said Basmati imports of 1.4 million tonne from India was ‘excess’, thus the carry forward stock with Iran was ‘high’ in the last fiscal. Thus the shipment to Iran fell to around 9 lakh tonne in the last fiscal.
The lifting of restriction on rice import comes at a time the prices of Basmati paddy has crashed to around R28,000 per quintal at present from R40,000 per quintal prevailed two years back. According to a commerce ministry official, average realisation from Basmati rice exports has fallen from $1,295 per tonne in FY14 to around $ 950 a tonne in the current fiscal.
“With Iran lifting restriction on rice import, the exports prospects look bright in the next few months of the current fiscal,” a leading exporter said.
Rice shipments to Iran got a boost when India launched a rupee settlement mechanism from April 2012 with Iran to avoid sanctions from the US and EU. As part of the initiative, state-owned UCO Bank has tied up with Iranian lenders — Parsian, Pasargad, Saman and EN Banks — for settlements of dues.
Iran and India also agreed to have referral labs in India for testing rice consignments rejected by Tehran because of presence of pesticide residue. “Henceforth, in case of disputes on pesticide residue levels, the report of these labs would be final,” an official said.
Sources said the Iranian authorities have been asking India’s exporters since January 2014 to furnish documents on good agricultural practices, ISO 22000, which deal with food safety management and packaging protocols, besides “non-genetically modified crop” certification.
Besides Iran, India exports Basmati to Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, EU and others. India exported R27,598 crore worth of Basmati in the last fiscal.
