INDIA RATED AS FOODGRAINS EXPORTER
BY IGC
The International
Grains Council (IGC) has included India in the list of exporting
countries from the list of its importing members. The IGC Grains
Conference 2003 was held in London in June 2003 and this year’s
theme was "Connecting with Consumer Need-Rising to the Challenge".
The meeting reviewed
the current marketing situation of foodgrains and outlook for
2003-04. It was noted that wheat production in most major exporting
countries would be substantially more than last year’s production
but crops in countries which exported large amount of grains in
2002/03 particularly, Russia and Ukraine would be much less due
to poor weather condition. Overall, world exportable supplies
of wheat were expected to be adequate to meet the import demand
in 2003/04, which was estimated to be slightly below last year’s
level.
India started exporting
wheat since November, 2000 and rice since April, 2001. The total
exports of wheat and rice from the central pool during the last
three years stand at 118.74 lakh tonnes and 78.36 lakh tonnes
respectively. India has now become the 2nd largest
exporter of rice and 8th largest exporter of wheat
globally. Wheat is being exported to 30 countries and rice to
54 countries.
