India not planning to curb rice exports, has sufficient stocks: Report

India does not intend to limit rice exports since the world’s largest exporter of the staple has ample inventories and local pricing are lower than state-set support prices, said trade and government sources.

India prohibited wheat exports on May 14, only days after New Delhi predicted record shipments of 10 million tonnes this year, citing a heat wave as a factor in lower output and higher local pricing.

A senior government official involved in the decision making said, ‘We have more than sufficient stocks of rice and there is no concern at all in terms of either prices or availability for exports and domestic requirements. At this stage, there is no consideration to prohibit rice exports’.

India’s rice exports increased to a record 21.2 million tonnes in the fiscal year ending March 2022, up from 17.8 million tonnes the previous year. India is also the world’s second-largest consumer of the crop.

According to B.V. Krishna Rao, president of the All India Rice Exporters Association, rice prices are decreasing even as exports climb since India has large supplies and local purchases by the Food Corporation of India (FCI), the state stockpiler, are increasing. FCI had 66.22 million tonnes of milled and rice paddy stockpiles, compared to a target of 13.58 million tonnes.

‘There is no need to put any restriction on rice exports. Wheat output and prices were affected due to the war in Ukraine, but … the Black Sea region is neither a major producer nor consumer of rice’, Rao said.

India’s rice export prices fell from $350 to $354 a tonne this week, the lowest in more than five years. The country’s rice output increased to a record 129.66 million tonnes in the crop year ending June 2022, up from 121.1 million tonnes the previous year.

FCI has had to acquire more rice from local farmers due to higher output, having purchased a record 80.4 million tonnes of rice paddy from producers so far this year, compared to 77 million tonnes in the same period last year. ‘FCI’s procurement is going up, and that is an indication that there’s no shortage, so there is no logic for any ban on rice exports’, Rao further added.