India Rice Export Ban To Push Prices For Asian, African nations

Last year, India, which accounts for 40% of the global rice trade, exported 22 million tons of rice to 140 countries. Of this, six million tons was the cheaper Indica white rice.

Photo Insert: Indica white rice dominates around 70% of the global trade, and India has now ceased its export.

The global trade in rice was 56 million tons. Indica white rice dominates around 70% of the global trade, and India has now ceased its export, Soutik Biswas reported for BBC.

This comes on top of the country's ban last year of exports of broken rice and a 20% duty on non-basmati rice exports.

Not surprisingly, July's export ban has sparked worries about runaway global rice prices.

IMF chief economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas reckons the ban would drive up prices and that global grain prices could rise up to 15% this year. Shirley Mustafa, a rice market analyst at the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned that global rice prices have been steadily rising since early 2022, with an increase of 14% since last June.

Second, supplies are under strain, given that the arrival of the new crop in the markets is still about three months away.

India has a stockpile of an eye-popping 41 million tons of rice - more than three times the buffer requirement - in public granaries for its strategic reserve and the Public Distribution System (PDS), which gives more than 700 million poor people access to cheap food.

Despite the huge inventory, domestic rice prices have risen more than 30% since last October - resulting in increased political pressure on the government ahead of general elections next year.

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