ISLAMABAD: Indonesia has allocated a higher quota of rice imports from Pakistan under the preferential trade agreement.
As per agreement, eight Pakistani rice exporters got orders for 6,250 tonnes each, totalling 50,000 tonnes after the bidding process.
An official statement issued by the Ministry of Commerce said that this single transaction will be worth around $22.5m.
It is expected that after the notification of an additional 20 tariff lines, which include Pakistan’s top export potential by the Indonesian authorities, exporters of these products will benefit from it.
The notification of the 20 tariff lines will be issued by the Indonesian authorities after completing official formalities.
Meanwhile, kinno exports have already increased due to longer available time limit for exports allowed by the Indonesian authorities this year.
The PTA, signed in February 2012 and operationalised in September 2013 will bring more opportunities for the Pakistani exporters, helping reduce trade deficit between the two countries. After bilateral negotiations, the Commerce Division was successful in getting greater market access to Indonesian market.
The negotiations to get unilateral market access on 20 high priority tariff lines and increased access for Pakistan’s agricultural products were initiated in 2017.
These culminated during the visit of the Indonesian President Joko Widodo on January 26-27.
Published in Dawn, March 22nd, 2018
