NEW DELHI, March 18 India will not raise the floor price for basmati rice exports, federal Farm Minister Sharad Pawar said on Thurday.
India, the world's second-biggest rice producer, cut the minimum export price of basmati to $900 per tonne from $1,100 per tonne in September 2009.
Some analysts had said the government might raise the export price to restrict overseas sales after last year's worst monsoon rains in more than three decades hit harvests of the summer-sown variety.
The country last month forecast summer-sown harvests of the grain at 72.87 million tonnes, 14.2 percent lower than a year earlier. Farmers plant the summer-sown varieties in the monsoon months of June and July and harvest the crop from October.
Source : Reuters