Saudi Arabia agrees to increase rice imports from Pakistan to 20% — Pakistani official

KARACHI: Saudi Arabia has agreed to increase rice imports from Pakistan to 20 percent of the Kingdom’s total requirement, a Pakistani official said on Wednesday, as the South Asian nation gears up to achieve the $3 billion rice exports for the first time ever.

Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have been closely working to increase their bilateral trade and investment, including a recent commitment to invest about $5 billion in Pakistan. 

The Kingdom wants to help Islamabad by importing more from Pakistan, according to Muhammad Zubair Motiwala, head of the Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP), the government arm that facilitates and promotes Pakistan’s international trade.

“Saudi are very eager to come and invest in Pakistan. They also want to help Pakistan by importing more from Pakistan,” Motiwala told Arab News, on the sidelines of an event hosted by the Rice Exporters Association of Pakistan (REAP) in Karachi. 

“For instance, the rice, which we are exporting to Saudi Arabia, is 7 percent of the requirement and they have agreed that they will take it to 20 percent. It’s almost three times [of] what we’re exporting today.” 

Pakistan has exported rice worth $2.9 billion from July 2023 till March 2024, according to REAP officials.

“We will cross the $3 billion export mark easily during the remaining four months of the current fiscal year,” Chela Ram Kewlani, the REAP chairman, said at the event.

The development came days after the Saudi foreign minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, visited Pakistan to enhance bilateral economic cooperation and push forward previously agreed investment deals.

His trip came a little over a week after Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman met Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in Makkah and reaffirmed the Kingdom’s commitment to expedite investments worth $5 billion.

The TDAP chief said a high-powered Saudi delegation was due in Pakistan, which would further boost the trade and investment climate.

“They’re interested in so many privatization projects, like the PIA (Pakistan International Airlines) and the [Pakistan] Steel Mills, and so many others,” he said.

“And they also want to get into the stock exchange and they want to invest directly in the private sector and private-sector ventures.”

Motiwala was confident that Pakistan’s overall exports to Saudi Arabia would increase after diplomatic engagements between both countries at the time of the Saudi delegation’s visit. He, however, did not specify a tentative date for the visit.

Pakistan has exported goods worth $20.35 billion, including a major chunk of $11.14 billion that came from the textile exports, during the current fiscal year (July 2023-Feb 2024), according to official data.

However, the TDAP chief said the country was not fully harnessing its potential, which he believed to be more than $100 billion. 

“I am never satisfied, to be very frank and blunt… looking at the potential of Pakistan, we should not be at this place where we are... $30 billion, $32 billion [exports] is not the size of Pakistan,” he said.

“I think at least Pakistan should export more than 100 billion dollars.”

Motiwala said the TDAP was working hard to see how the country could increase its exports.

“We are looking for the government’s help also, government’s cooperation also, where we can reduce the cost of doing business and cost of manufacturing in Pakistan,” he said. “If we are able to do that, I think sky is the limit.”

The TDAP official said Pakistan was also going to organize a single country exhibition in Riyadh within the next two months to display a wide range of ‘Made-in Pakistan’ products.