Pakistan’s Rice Shipments May Fall 11% After Floods, Group Says

Pakistan, the world’s third-largest rice exporter, may ship 11 percent less of the grain this year after floods destroyed standing crop, a traders’ group said.

“We may export as much as 4 million tons in the year ending June 30 because the floods washed away 700,000 tons of the crop,” Irfan Ahmed Sheikh, chairman of the Rice Exporters Association of Pakistan, said in an interview by phone from Karachi today. Pakistan’s rice exporters sold 4.5 million tons worth $2.2 billion in the year ended June 30, 2010 Sheikh said.

Pakistan’s deadliest floods last summer destroyed $3.3 billion worth of crops, according to the farm ministry. Pakistan has shipped $1 billion worth of rice  in the seven months ended Jan. 31, the association said in a statement earlier this week.

The group had estimated in December it would export 4.6 million tons.

(Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-02-10/pakistan-s-rice-shipments-may-fall-11-after-floods-group-says.html)