Indian Exporters Wary of Basmati Shipments to Britain
06-Aug-2025 12:13 PM
New Delhi. After the signing of bilateral trade agreement between India and Britain last month, exporters of Indian marine products and many agricultural products are very excited and their activity has started increasing, but Indian Basmati rice exporters have to be a little cautious.
There is no doubt that due to exemption from customs duty, the import cost of Indian Basmati rice in Britain (England) has reduced, but it will not be easy to completely oust Pakistani Basmati rice.
For this, Indian exporters will have to keep the export offer price of their Basmati rice at such a competitive level that the importers of Britain can stop importing rice from Pakistan.
After getting exemption from customs duty, the price of Indian Basmati rice in Britain will naturally come to an attractive level and India will also get adequate benefit from it.
On the other hand, this situation will increase the difficulty of Pakistani rice exporters there. Pakistan cannot make a huge cut in the price of its rice and a little reduction will not have any effect on India.
It is noteworthy that the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (SETA) was signed between India and Britain in London last month, which has made many Indian agricultural sector members very happy.
But some exporters of Basmati rice fear that the matter will not be as easy in the future as was thought earlier.
Before the signing of SETA, a huge import duty of about 21 pounds per tonne was imposed on brown Basmati rice exported from India to Britain and about 120-121 pounds (or pounds) per tonne on white Basmati rice.
The import duty used to reach its peak in the month of September and after that it started decreasing. In total, about 5 lakh tons of Basmati rice is imported from India to the European Union,
but Britain is no longer a member of it and India will have to prepare a strong base to create a new and permanent market there and at the same time try to eliminate the challenge of Pakistan.