Rice export: Russia confirms registration of 15 more Pakistani mills

KARACHI: Russia has confirmed registration of another 15 Pakistani mills for export of rice to Russia. This will help further escalate the rice exports, which have already earned $2.5 billion for the exchequer during last fiscal year.

According to Rice Exporters Association of Pakistan (Reap), Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance of Russia (Rosselkhoznadzor) has confirmed registration of 15 rice mills for export of rice to Russia.

Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance of Russia has give green signal to Pakistan’s Department of Plant Protection (DPP), Ministry of National Food Security and Research Pakistan that it has completed registration of 15 more rice companies with Rosselkhoznadzor as upgraded and recommended by DPP and now they can export rice to Russia.

REAP urges govt to help it achieve $5bn rice exports

This marks a huge success towards boosting exports of Pakistani rice and overall economy of the state. The Russian Federation had put a ban on import of rice from Pakistan in 2019 on pest interception in rice consignment.

However, it lifted ban in 2021 after corrective measures taken by DPP in the rice establishment with respect to sanitary and phytosanitary measures, however, it only approved 4 compliant rice mills for import of rice from Pakistan based on inspection report of its technical delegation and asked for additional information and measures for the remaining rice facilities.

DPP took special steps to upgrade 15 more rice mills by implementing Standard Guidance Document as per requirements of the Russian Federation.

The tireless efforts including guidance, repeated technical compliance audits were put in this direction by DPP to ensure and enable these companies to export rice through improvement in food safety and phytosanitary measures besides quality, storage and packaging. Now, 19 rice enterprises from Pakistan ca export rice to the Russian Federation.

Reap said that this is a huge achievement of the Pakistan government where the Department of Plant Protection under the MNFSR in close collaboration with the Ministry of Commerce became able to pitch increased rice exports to the Russian Federation.

This brings good news especially to the rice farmers of Punjab and Sindh, as their main source of earning is based on these exports. Moreover, Pakistan being the agrarian economy can also look for enhancing exports in other domains as well by improving quality standards as per global markets.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023