THE Philippines’s rice imports have breached 3.6 million metric tons (MMT), posting a new record volume for the world’s second largest buyer of the grain.

 

Latest Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI) figures showed that a total of 3.645 MMT of rice have entered the country as of mid-December.

 

The volume is already 31.54 percent higher than the 2.771 MMT total rice imports recorded for the entire 2021, based on historical BPI data.

 

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) earlier projected that the Philippines’s total rice imports this year would reach at least 3.5 MMT, driven by higher purchases from Vietnam.

 

Based on USDA’s estimates, the Philippines is the world’s second biggest buyer of rice behind China.

 

BPI data showed that about 3 MMT of the total rice imports as of December 15 came from Vietnam. It was followed by Myanmar at 233,298 MT, Thailand at 174,056 MT and Pakistan at 170,779 MT.

 

BPI data showed that 147 eligible rice importers used a total of 4,066 sanitary and phytosanitary import clearances (SPSICs) in bringing in the foreign rice supplies into the country.

 

The rice importers also purchased rice from China, India, Japan, Singapore and Spain during the reference period.

 

NAN STU Agri Traders topped the list of rice importers with a total import arrival of 199,540.35 MT followed by Lucky Buy and Sell (163,763 MT) and Manus Dei Resources Ent. Inc (154,571.28 MT), based on BPI data.

 

Agriculture Undersecretary Mercedita A. Sombilla earlier said the increase in the country’s rice imports this year was a 'blessing in disguise' since it compensated for the decline in local production due to expensive fertilizer and impact of typhoons.

 

Earlier, high-ranking agriculture officials revealed that the national government will continue its practice of 'managing' the entry of rice imports by slowing down the issuance of pertinent import documents during harvest seasons as authorities 'balance' local production and foreign supplies.

 

They also hinted that they may issue fewer SPSICs that would cover import arrivals in the first half should official figures indicate abundant supply.

 

Since the rice trade liberalization law took effect in 2019, authorities have been looking for ways to manage the arrival of rice imports to avert an oversupply that would depress farm-gate prices of local palay.

 

One of the ways the government limits the entry of rice imports especially during harvest seasons is by slowing down on the issuance of SPSICs.

 

The last time the BPI issued SPSICs for rice imports was June 6, with a corresponding volume of a little over 625,000 MT.

 

The BPI, an attached agency of the DA, is mandated under Republic Act 11203 or the RTL law to oversee rice importation through issuance of SPSIC. The SPSIC is a required import document that certifies an imported good or product is safe for human consumption and health and does not bring in any threats to the local agriculture sector such as plants and animals.

Bilateral Trade between India and the GCC grew from US$ 87.35 billion in FY 2020-21 to US$ 154.66 billion in FY 2021-22, registering an increase of 77.06% on a year-on-year basis. During the current FY 2022-23, for the period April-October 2022, bilateral trade between India and the GCC stood at US$ 111.71 billion, up from US$ 79.49 billion during the same period in FY 2021-22. This is an increase of 40.53% on a year-on-year basis. During the period FY 2017-18 to FY 2021-22, bilateral trade between India and the GCC has grown by 10.57% on a compounded annual growth rate basis. 

 

This information has been provided by Minister of State in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Smt. Anupriya Patel said in reply to a parliamentary question today.

India has signed 13 free trade agreements (FTAs) and six preferential pacts so far with its trading partners for ensuring greater market access for domestic goods and promoting exports, Union minister Anupriya Patel said on Wednesday. The country has recently signed three such agreements with Mauritius, the UAE and Australia.

 

Further, India is also actively engaged in FTA negotiations with some of its trading partners including the UK, European Union and Canada.

 

Trade negotiations with partner countries is a dynamic and continuous process for obtaining better market access for India's exports and other business opportunities, Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Anupriya Patel said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.

 

'India has so far signed 13 Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) and six Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs) with its trading partners for preferential access for its products,' she said.

 

In a separate reply, the minister said that six rounds of negotiations have been held so far between India and the UK for a proposed trade pact.

 

Replying to a separate question, Patel said that the government's decision of November 19, to withdraw export duty on iron ore with 'less than 58 per cent Fe content', iron ore pellets, pig iron and certain steel products will boost exports.

 

India's iron ore exports in October were 1,85,518 tonnes valuing USD 7.83 million.

A small working group would be formed to promote export of bananas, especially the traditional varieties and value added products of the fruit, said M. Angamuthu, Chairman, Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA), here on Wednesday.

 

India was the largest producer of banana in the world, yet it had a negligible share in the global banana trade and exported the fruit to just about 15 countries. Banana export could be increased by reaching out to the United States and European countries. 'APEDA will promote export of traditional banana varieties and GI tagged bananas to more countries. It will promote export of banana based value added products as well. A small working group comprising stakeholders will be formed to promote export of bananas,' Mr.Angamuthu said.

 

A small working group would be formed to promote export of bananas, especially the traditional varieties and value added products of the fruit, said M. Angamuthu, Chairman, Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA), here on Wednesday.

 

India was the largest producer of banana in the world, yet it had a negligible share in the global banana trade and exported the fruit to just about 15 countries. Banana export could be increased by reaching out to the United States and European countries. 'APEDA will promote export of traditional banana varieties and GI tagged bananas to more countries. It will promote export of banana based value added products as well. A small working group comprising stakeholders will be formed to promote export of bananas,' Mr.Angamuthu said.

 

He was speaking at the inaugural of a two-day consultative workshop on ‘Export of GI and traditional bananas: Present scenario, trade opportunities and the way forward,’ organised by the ICAR National Research Centre for Banana (NRCB) in association with APEDA here.

 

Mr. Angamuthu observed that traditional varieties are the country’s inherent strength and stakeholders should strive to market them to the world by ensuring better quality and packaging. He called upon scientists to identify gaps in technology, supply chain management and other areas and initiate appropriate remedial measures.

 

Addressing the delegates virtually, V.B. Patel, Assistant Director General, Horticultural Science-II, Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), said that so far Geographical Indication (GI) tags have been obtained for seven traditional banana varieties in the country and underlined the scope for increasing export of traditional banana varieties.

 

Underlining the importance of improving the yield and quality of traditional banana varieties, V. Geethalakshmi, Vice-Chancellor, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, said precision farming techniques would help conserve water and targeted application of nutrients. The varsity will work with farmers’ producers organisations to identify the requirements and promote export oriented agriculture, she said.

 

Rajalakshmi Devaraj, Additional Director General of Foreign Trade, Chennai, called upon farmers to take advantage of the district export hub programme, which is to be implemented in 11 districts in Tamil Nadu, including Tiruchi. Banana was the product identified for promotion under the programme in the district, she said.

 

R.Selvarajan, Director, NRCB, said scientists of the centre have initiated inter-disciplinary action to include cutting edge production technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, IoT and precision farming in banana cultivation.

 

C.Samayamoorthy, Agricultural Production Commissioner and Secretary, Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Tamil Nadu, K.M.Indresh, Vice Chancellor, University of Horticultural Sciences, Bagalkot, S. Uma, Principal Scientist (Horticulture), NRCB, and others spoke.

 

The Ministry of Food Processing Industries (MoFPI) is implementing a Central Sector Scheme - 'Production Linked Incentive Scheme for Food Processing Industry (PLISFPI)' with an outlay of Rs 10,900 crore over a six-year period from 2021-22 to 2026-27. The scheme, inter alia, helps create of global food manufacturing champions commensurate with India’s natural resource endowment and supports Indian brands of food products in the international markets.

 

The export of agri-food products (ITC Chapters 2-23 excluding 5,6,14) has increased from US$ 29.67 billion in 2015-16 to US$ 46.11 billion in 2021-22 showing a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 7.62% and the export of value added processed-food products (ITC Chapter 16-23) increased from US$ 4.855 billion in 2015-16 to US$ 10.420 billion in 2021-22 showing a CAGR of 13.57%.

 

In order to ensure overall development of Food Processing sectors across the country, MoFPI has been implementing Central Sector Umbrella Scheme – Pradhan Mantri Kisan SAMPADA Yojana (PMKSY), centrally sponsored PM Formalisation of Micro Food Processing Enterprises Scheme (PMFME) and Central Sector Production Linked Incentive Scheme (PLISFPI). Under component schemes of PMKSY, MoFPI provides mostly credit linked financial assistance (capital subsidy) in the form of grants-in-aid for setting up of food processing industries/ units/ projects. The ministry provides financial, technical and business support for setting up/upgradation of micro food processing enterprises through PMFME scheme, whereas, PLISFPI is targeted to facilitate expansion of food processing capacity by creating champion brands in food processing sector.

 

This information was given by Minister of State for Food Processing Industries Prahlad Singh Patel in a written reply in Lok Sabha recently.

The Trade Office of Vietnam in India has taken part in a programme in Uttarakhand state, held trade promotion activities there, and explored investment and business cooperation chances in Dehradun city.

 

The Uttarakhand programme focused on discussing opportunities for business and investment partnerships in agriculture, food processing, pharmaceutical production, and forestry.

 

At the event, Vietnamese Trade Counsellor in India Bui Trung Thuong gave local officials brief information about the Southeast Asian country’s economic development in recent years, especially in agriculture, forestry, and fisheries, along with economic and trade ties between the two countries.

 

He also proposed some orientations for cooperation between Vietnam and India, including Uttarakhand state.

 

At a meeting with Chief Minister of Uttarakhand state Pushkar Singh Dhami, Thuong introduced Vietnam’s coffee products and suggested that enterprises from Uttarakhand strengthen relations with Vietnam in cultivating and processing medicinal plants, and supplying materials for pharmaceutical production in Vietnam.

 

For his part, Chief Minister Dhami highlighted his state’s natural advantages for developing agriculture and forestry, noting that the local administration is stepping up organic agriculture, animal farming, dairy processing, food processing, pharmaceutical production, and auto manufacturing.

 

He also expressed his hope for cooperation with Vietnam in developing coffee cultivation in Uttarakhand.

India’s Bagadiya Brothers has come up with the most competitive offer in Bangladesh’s tender to import 50,000 tonnes of parboiled price, outbidding three other firms.

 

Bagadiya Brothers, which has bagged quite a few tenders in the recent past with such competitive offers, quoted $393.90 a tonne including cost and freight, trade sources said.

 

The next best competitive offer was from Singapore’s Agrocorp International Ptd Ltd, which offered the rice at $401.55 a tonne. BSE-listed Haldar Ventures quoted $407.09 for its offer, while Kribhco Agribusiness Pvt Ltd, an arm of fertiliser cooperative Kribho, quoted $427. 

 

The bids, which were invited on December 6, were opened today. Another tender inviting bids was floated on December 12 and will be opened on December 27. 

 

The tender in line with Bangladesh’s demand for rice for public distribution as well as private trade.

 

Looking for more

The Sheikh Hasina Wajed Government has approached the Narendra Modi government to import 5 lakh tonnes of parboiled rice on a government-to-government basis. The issue will likely figure at talks between Bangladesh Commerce Minister Tipu Munshi, who landed in New Delhi on a five-day visit, and his Indian counterpart Piyush Goyal. 

 

According to the sources, Bangladesh has turned to India as it has not been able to find parboiled rice at a competitive rate from other competing countries such as Thailand and Pakistan. 

 

Indian parboiled rice is currently offered at $373-77 a tonne free-on-board compared with $474 quoted by Thailand and $453-57 offered by Pakistan. 

 

Though the Wajed government says it has ample rice stocks, it has begun importing rice to prevent any crisis. In Bangladesh, rice prices have spiked over the past few weeks as its paddy crop has been affected by weather - floods and then dry weather. 

 

India may not have any problem supplying parboiled rice to Bangladesh since its exports have not been curbed. In its order curbing rice exports from September 9, the government banned shipments of fully broken rice and imposed a 20 per cent export duty on non-basmati white rice. 

 

Parboiled and Basmati rice are exempt from any curbs. However, domestic rice prices have been rising on fears that the kharif paddy crop may be lower due to deficient rainfall in some of the key growing areas. 

 

The Agriculture Ministry in its first advance estimate has pegged rice kharif production at 104.99 million tonnes (mt) against 111.76 mt last year.  

 

According to the Agricultural and Processed Food Exports Development Authority (APEDA), non-basmati rice exports in the first half increased to 8.96 mt against 8.23 mt a year ago with the shipments fetching $3.03 billion against $2.97 billion.

The Union Minister of State for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Ms. Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti in a written reply to a question in Lok Sabha today shared that the Government has planned to increase millets production and annually fixes target for the millet production. The crop-wise, state-wise and season-wise target of Nutri-Cereals for the year 2022-23 is annexed. For increasing the production of Nutri-Cereals under National Food Security Mission (NFSM) programme, the NFSM-Nutri Cereals is being implemented in 212 districts of 14 states. Under NFSM, assistance is given through state governments to farmers for interventions like cluster demonstrations on improved package of practices, demonstrations on cropping system, distribution of seeds of High Yielding Varieties (HYVs)/hybrids, improved farm machineries/resource conservation machineries/tools, efficient water application tools, plant protection measures, nutrient management/soil ameliorants, processing & postharvest equipments, cropping system based trainings to the farmers etc.

 

The mission also provides support to Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) & State Agricultural Universities (SAUs)/Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs) for technology back stopping and transfer of technology to the farmer under supervision of Subject Matter Specialists/Scientists. The research organizations are supported for undertaking research projects that can help enhancing production and productivity of food crops.

 

The State Governments can also promote cultivation of millets under Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana – Remunerative Approaches for Agriculture & Allied Sector Rejuvenation (RKVY- RAFTAAR) with the approval of the State Level Sanctioning Committee (SLSC) of the respective states.

 

ANNEX.

State, Crop and Season-wise production targets of Nutri cereals for the year 2022-23

(Production in Lakh tones)

Sl. No.	States	Jowar			Bajra	Ragi	Small Millets	Total Nutri Cereals
		Kharif	Rabi	Total	Kharif	Kharif	Kharif	Kharif	Rabi	Total
l	Andhra Pradesh	0.10	2.90	3.00	0.80	0.75	0.32	1.97	2.90	4.87
2	Arunachal       Pradesh			0.00			0.30	0.30	0.00	0.30
3	Assam			0.00			0.05	0.05	0.00	pib.gov.in
22 Dec, 2022 India set to offer wheat to flour millers, biscuit makers to tame prices: Sources. India is set to offer 2 to 3 million tonnes of wheat to bulk consumers such as flour millers and biscuit makers as part of efforts to cool record high prices, two government sources said, even as state reserves have dropped to the lowest in six years.   Wheat prices have surged in India this year after a sudden rise in temperatures hit crop yields and output.   A jump in exports following Russia's invasion of Ukraine also pushed up local wheat prices, prompting India, the world's second-biggest producer of the grain, to order a ban on exports in May, but that has failed to stop domestic prices rising.   As open market prices rose above the rate at which the government buys the staple from domestic farmers, state purchases of wheat have fallen by 53% this year to 18.8 million tonnes.   'We're planning to offload wheat in the open market to control prices as we can't afford to have yet another year of lower procurement (when purchases start in March/April 2023),' said one of the sources. 'In terms of stocks, we have the elbow room to intervene in the market.'   The government buys rice and wheat from farmers at state-set prices to run the world's biggest food welfare programme that entitles about 800 million people to receive 5 kg of rice and wheat every month at 2 rupees ($0.02) and 3 rupees a kg respectively.   The plan is to free up 2 to 3 million tonnes of wheat for sale to bulk users, the sources said.   India's falling wheat reserves, and rising prices of the staple are a far cry from overflowing granaries that allowed the country to export a record 7.2 million tonnes of the grain in the fiscal year to March 2022.   'We're confident that the release of 2 to 3 million tonnes of wheat in the open market will bring prices down,' said the second source.   The two sources with direct knowledge of the matter didn't wish to be named, in line with official policy.   They also said the government will decide later this month whether to extend the food programme that provides free rice and wheat to the poor.   On top of the flagship food welfare scheme, Prime Minister Narendra Modi in April 2020 introduced the free food programme as part of the government's COVID-19 relief measures.   In September, ahead of some crucial state elections, Modi's administration extended the programme by three months, adding $5.46 billion to government spending and making it challenging to rein in the fiscal deficit.   As well as the cost, government officials have cited lower government wheat stocks as a serious impediment to continuing with the free food plan that requires between 95 and 100 million tonnes of rice and wheat every year.   'The government is in a tight spot due to lower stocks and that's why it would be difficult to continue with the free food programme without any curtailment,' said a New-Delhi-based trader with a global trade house.  Source:  economictimes.indiatimes.com
22 Dec, 2022 India looks at expanding rupee trade to Africa, W Asia to make it stronger. India, which has already been in talks with Russia for a rupee-rouble payment system, is now looking at expanding the rupee trade with other nations as well, including several countries in Africa, UAE and Saudi Arabia among others.   Besides cash-starved Sri Lanka is also likely to start using the Indian currency for bilateral trade.   An analyst working for an industry body noted that as many countries look at setting up alternative supply chains in India, there is an 'openness in accepting the rupee trade.'   Expanded trading in rupees will help India to reduce dependence on its foreign exchange reserves and even help in boosting the balance of payments position and strengthening the fundamentals of the economy.   The exercise will also strengthen the rupee and internationalise it while reducing the impact of exchange rate fluctuations on the economy.   'Given the situation with rapid geopolitical shifts, India has already started taking appropriate steps to make the rupee more acceptable internationally,' a government insider told India Narrative. He added that there are a few issues which have come up and those need to be resolved for a smooth deal.   Ashwani Mahajan, national co-convenor of Swadeshi Jagran Manch added that India must also take up the issue of rupee trade with countries with which it is looking at inking trade agreements.   'This issue is a serious one, we must move fast on internationalising the rupee not just with countries which are dollar deficient like Sri Lanka or Bangladesh but even with those that share cordial ties with New Delhi,' Mahajan said.   Meanwhile, China has already started putting in measures to internalise its currency renminbi (RMB).   The People's Bank of China�the country's central bank, stated earlier that it will look at ways to expand the use of renminbi globally for trade and even cross border investments.   According to China Daily, Zhou Maohua, an analyst at China Everbright Bank said that the renminbi's accelerated internationalization is reflected by its lifted weighting in the International Monetary Fund's Special Drawing Rights currency basket, which became effective in May.  Source:  business-standard.com
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