USDA weekly report on Thailand

Export prices remained relatively unchanged from last week with a slight trend downward as port and shipping problems hampered private sales. New contracts were primarily limited to Government-to-Government sales.

EU to require DNA testing for Basmati import

The sources said that since the European Commission had issued a regulation in August 2004 on basmati rice for the purpose of Import Duty Abatement, it was necessary to issue a notification on inclusion of 'super variety' as one of the recognised variety of India and this was pushed by India into the Letter of Exchange, though subsequently only the notification was issued by the Commerce Ministry.

Available trade figures with the EU suggest that India exported 1.78 lakh tonnes of basmati rice to the EU which increased to 2.26 lakh tonnes in 2006-07 till June 12, 2007, while Pakistan's exports to EU which was just 41,478 tonnes in 2005-06 skidded to 27,000 tonnes in 2006-07.

Concerned by the steep rise in basmati rice imports from India, Brussels is planning to put in place a DNA testing protocol, which could allow imports of "genuine" basmati rice only.

Italian rice Arborio

One of my clients, a rice mill based in the Vercelli area, offers milled Arborio for sale at 700 EUR/t EXW. Rice in big bags, over interchangeable Euro pallets.