Pakistan’s basmati export surpasses last year's level

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s basmati exports which were slightly lower last year, have increased in 2020.

According to the statistics agency, rice exports in 2020 were 16 percent lower than in 2019. In the year 2020, 47,75,445 tons of rice were exported. Last year, 498,524 tons of rice were exported. Despite the difficult situation, Pakistani basmati rice exports were not much affected.

Apart from basmati, Pakistan also earned a lot of foreign exchange by exporting other types of rice. In the year 2020, 2.3 million foreign exchange came to Pakistan. In the year 2019, it was 2.48 billion. The largest decline was recorded in January 2020 at 46 percent. As per the statistics, a total of 364,169,000 tonnes of rice was exported. In the same period in January 2019, 495,280 thousand tons were exported.

In October 2020, rice exports declined by 45 percent to 219,810 tonnes. In the same month of 2019, 317,222 tons of rice were exported. In August 2020, rice exports fell by 41 percent to 167,793 tonnes. In the same period in the year 2019, 249,070 tons of rice were exported.