Ministry taken to task over Pakistan rice imports

By John Oyuke

The Government has been asked to remove preferential market access pact for rice imports from Pakistan.

The Cereal Millers Association (CMA) has urged Agriculture Minister William Ruto, to review the trade pact between Kenya and Pakistan because of the changed scenario on tea exports to the Asian nation.

CMA chairman Diamond Lalji said the agreement had been endorsed because Pakistan was a major importer of Kenyan tea.

He, however, says Pakistan now imports most of its tea from Sri Lanka, with imports from Kenya continuing to reduce drastically.

Largest buyer

Pakistan has for long been the single largest buyer of Kenyan tea, taking up more than 28 per cent of its total exports.

However, the tea trade between the two nations has been on a slump in the last three years with analysts saying the trend will get worse.

‘‘This means the trade concessions to Pakistan have lapsed and are no longer in our favour," Lalji said.

We need to standardise all imports.’’

Rice is the third highest consumed cereal after maize and wheat in the country.

Whereas Kenya’s annual rice consumption is approximately 300,000 tonnes, production stands at 60,000 tonnes. The difference is imported.

Lalji said this is a huge gap between supply and demand and contended that import duty on rice should be maintained at 35 per cent across the board.

‘‘Given the ongoing concern about increasing food prices, the current 75 per cent duty levied on rice imports may seem punitive given the local consumption gap that has to be met by imports,’’ he said.