São Paulo – Brazilian rice exports to the Arab world rose from US$ 525,000 in the first six months of last year to US$ 6.8 million in the same period this year. Greatly responsible for the increase was Mauritania, which answered to US$ 4.5 million in purchases. Rice shipped to the country, however, is chipped rice, which is normally not used directly in human feeding, but for the production of animal feed or other products like beer and flour.
The CEO at the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce, Michel Alaby, believes that in Mauritania the rice will be used for animal feeding. The rural sector in the country includes cattle and sheep breeding among its sources of income and half the Mauritanian population lives off agriculture and livestock farming. Mauritânia, in fact, is also a producer of rice and did not buy the product from Brazil in the first half of last year.
Brazil also exported other kinds of rice to the Arab market, like semibleached, parboiled and husked rice, among others. Revenues with sales, however, were smaller: US$ 2.3 million. The Arab countries that purchased rice from Brazil, apart from Mauritania, were Saudi Arabia, Algeria, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Syria and Sudan. Syria was the second main buyer, with US$ 598,000 in imports.
The value of rice sales, despite rising, is small as against the total Brazil exports to the Arab world. Between January and June, for example, Brazilian export revenues to the region totalled US$ 6.4 billion, with growth of 33% over the same period in 2010. Alaby recalls that other Arab countries, like Morocco and Egypt, in North Africa, are also producers of rice.
*Translated by Mark Ament
