KARACHI: Pakistani rice exporters warned the country could lose $400 million in export revenue due to high freight charges and lack of container availability, Arab News reported.

The global shortage of containers and high freight charges have affected Pakistan’s rice exports, making people associated with the business seek government intervention to restrict the exit of empty containers from the country.

“Due to the lack of availability of containers and high fright costs, 250,000 tonnes of rice could not be exported last year and this quantity may increase to 500,000 tonnes this year due to the severity of the situation,” Rice Exporters Association of Pakistan (Reap) senior vice chairman Muhammad Anwar Mianoor said during a news conference.

“The county is likely to lose $400 million in export revenue if timely steps are not taken through policy measures by restricting the movement of empty containers,” he said, adding, “The government should come up with policies for return of empty containers and should bound shipping companies to cap a fixed percentage of empty containers which will be available for export purposes.”

The Reap official noted that India had already taken such steps to facilitate its export sector by allowing imported containers to remain in the country for re-use.

Rice exporters said the container charges had gone up over 1,500 per cent by shipping companies which had been steadily increasing the cost of the commodity.

“Over a year, container charges which were $70 to $80 last year have increased to over $1,300 per container for their Chinese destination,” Mianoor said.

The Pakistani rice exporter called for a complete audit of shipping companies and freight forwarders, saying they were making money by disturbing the export sector.

“Shipping companies have made a cartel and are blackmailing us,” he continued.

However, the government officials said that the rice export was continuing from the country, adding that 55,000 tonnes of it had already been exported this week from the Karachi port.

They also maintained that appropriate measures had been taken to make containers available for exports.

“Around 5,000 containers at the ports are stuck up and we have asked the Federal Board of Revenue [FBR] to clear them,” special assistant to the prime minister on maritime affairs Mahmood Moulvi told Arab News.

Pakistan exported around 1.6 million tonnes of rice worth over $826 million, up by 13 per cent, during the July-November 2021 period of the current fiscal year.

The country’s exports fell by six per cent to over $2 billion, according to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics.