BEIJING: Pakistan’s rice export to China surged to $132.59 million in the first two months of current year 2022, showing a growth of 3.9 percent on a year-on-year basis.
According to the General Administration of Customs of the People’s Republic of China (GACC), Sino-Pak bilateral trade increased significantly in the first two months of 2022. China imported more than 347,434 tonnes of different types of rice, worth $132.5 million, an 18% increase over the import of 294,240 tonnes worth $127.61 million during the same period last year.
Commercial Counsellor Pakistan Embassy Beijing, Badar uz Zaman hoped that in the current year, Pakistan would achieve the target of one million tons of rice export to China and within a few years, it would be the largest rice exporter in the Chinese market, the state media reported.
“I think Chinese seed and technology, especially colour sorter machines, helped increase the export of Pakistani rice to China,” he added. He further said last year China imported about 973,000 tons of rice worth $ 437 million from Pakistan, CEN reported.
Zaman said Pakistan had become the third-largest exporter of rice to China. They were using traditional and especially social media platforms to provide awareness about Pakistani rice in the Chinese market.
Shamsul Islam Khan, former Vice President of Karachi Chamber of Commerce and CEO of Integra Trade and Marketing, said the reason for the increase of rice export to China was that “there is no quota system applied to broken rice and the duty is 10%, while Chinese hybrid seed increased the production and cultivation in Pakistan”.
“I requested that China should accept more Pakistani companies in the approval list which is now 53 and remove all duties that would help increase Pakistan’s export of rice to China,” he added.
It is worth mentioning that last July China’s custom authorities allowed seven more Pakistani rice units to export rice to the Chinese market. The number of total companies in the approved General Administration of Custom P.R of China list reached 53.
