India has removed the minimum price bar for basmati rice and onion exports, with the country's trade minister hailing the decision as beneficial to farmers. The US$950 per tonne minimum export price (MEP) for basmati rice has been removed, the Commerce Ministry said on Friday. In another decision, the government lifted the MEP condition for onion exports and slashed the export duty from 40 to 20 per cent. Agriculture sector exports and farmer incomes will get a boost from these decisions, Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal said on social media platform X. India has tried to stabilise domestic onion supplies and prices for months. It imposed an onion export ban in December last year and then extended it until March. The ban was lifted in May but the government fixed the MEP at US$550 per tonne and imposed a 40 per cent export duty. Keeping food prices under control is a sensitive issue in the world's most populous country. The government prohibited non-basmati white rice exports in July 2023 to keep the domestic market adequately supplied. While export of basmati rice - a long-grain aromatic variety grown chiefly in India and Pakistan - was not banned, the Indian government fixed the floor price per tonne at US$1,200, which was later reduced to US$950 a tonne. The MEP was set following the discovery that some exporters were labelling cheaper non basmati shipments as "basmati" but selling them at much lower prices than the basmati rate. The short-grain non-basmati varieties make up a significant portion of the country's affordable food supply scheme called the Public Distribution System (PDS), which supplies grain to hundreds of millions people. India's rice exports in its financial year 2022-23 (April-March) totalled 22.3 million tonnes, with non-basmati shipments valued at US$6.3 billion and basmati sales fetching US$4.7 billion.The top five Middle East buyers - Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen, accounted for 63 per cent of India's total 4.55 million tonnes of basmati exports during the 12-month period. Source:- The Hindu
