Importers of Rice In Saudi Arabia hold a major share in world market for Indian rice and about 90 percent of the rice market is consisting of the rice buyers who prefer to import various varieties of long grain rice including basmati, non basmati, parboiled, and regular white rice. The remaining 10 percent of market is consisting of the buyers who prefer to import medium grain variety of rice. In 2017, a total 1.4 million metric tons of rice was imported, which equally contributed for an effective GDP growth for both nations, i.e. India and Saudi Arabia.
On 1st September 2019, the Saudi Food and Drug Authority (SFDA), the quality regulator of the country, decided that each rice import consignment, coming from any country, must be accompanied by a Certificate of Conformity (COC). Hence, this made COC mandatory for every Indian Rice Exporters and for all their consignments sent after September in the current financial year.
Saudi Arabia’s new quality certification rules for imported rice have opened door for high quality rice import and a better trade opportunity for the Rice Importers in Saudi Arabia. Plus, it has further strengthened the export opportunities and high profit prospects for many rice exporters from India. To sustain the market growth and to assure the proper compliance of COC in the Indian rice industry, SFDA has appointed two agencies in the market. One is Intertek and the other one is Austria (India) for issuing COC to Rice Exporters from India.
This has not only made the process easier but also faster, so that the Rice Importers from Saudi Arabia doesn’t have to wait for long period for their rice orders.
Importers of Basmati Rice in Saudi Arabia holds most part of the rice import market share in the country as most of their cuisines require Basmati Rice. This has also propelled the Basmati Rice Export from Indian and Pakistan as these two are the only countries where this variety of rice is produced. The Basmati Rice Importers in Saudi Arabia prefers the import of this variety of rice from India as the exporters here are completely compliant with the COC rule.
The Basmati Rice export from India has increased by approximately 20 percent y-o-y. In the current financial year, the total annual export of Basmati Rice to Saudi Arabia till date lies between 4.0 and 4.5 million tons. This data clearly suggests that the Rice Importers from Saudi Arabia prefer high quality basmati rice from India.
Considering this, Indian authorities have proposed some regulations to follow before exporting Basmati Rice to Saudi Arabia, so that required quality is attained.
Basmati Rice Importers In Saudi Arabia prefers only the high quality of Basmati Rice from India. Indian Government mentioned some guidelines and procedures to maintain the international standard quality of Basmati Rice. These guidelines and procedures should be followed by the Indian rice exporters.
The procedures and processes are usually common for almost all countries, only the technical terms used for export and import could be varied. This is done to make the quality of import better and to make further trade for the Rice Importers in Saudi Arabia easier. Below are some of the procedures to be followed while exporting rice to Saudi Arabia.
There are three stages of export procedures to export Basmati Rice in Saudi Arabia.
Registration Process
Customs Procedures
Documents Required For Exporting Rice
Apart from the basic documents, other major documents required for the export rice to the Rice Importers from Saudi Arabia are as follows: