Country witnesses rise in rice export to 9 countries and wheat export to 7 countries

India’s quest for expanding the footprint of cereals exports through exploring new opportunities has started to yield results. Ministry of Commerce & Industry has said that nine countries where India exported non-basmati rice for the first time in 2020-21 or where earlier the shipment was smaller in volume included Timor-Leste, Puerto Rico, Brazil, Papua New Guinea, Zimbabwe, Burundi, Eswatini, Myanmar and Nicaragua. The total volume of export of rice to these nine countries was a few hundred metric tonnes in 2018-19 and in 2019-20. This rose to over 1.5 lakh metric tonnes last year.

In the case of wheat, exports to seven specified countries where there were none in 2018-19 and only 4 metric tonnes in 2019-20, wheat export to these seven countries rose to nearly 1.5 lakh metric tonnes last year. Export of other cereals to 6 specified countries where there were none in 2018-19 also saw an increase.