NEW DELHI, October 8 — The Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry on Thursday formally rescinded the mandatory $490 per tonne Minimum Export Price (MEP) on outward shipments of non-basmati white rice, completely liberalizing export operations across private grain aggregators.
Under Trade Notification No. 34/2026 issued by the DGFT, customs authorities were instructed to permit unrestrained maritime shipments of semi-milled and wholly milled non-basmati white rice without floor-price stipulations. The regulatory recalibration follows comfortable grain inventory levels held within the Central Pool administered by the Food Corporation of India (FCI), coupled with expansive kharif paddy sowing acreage surpassing 41 million hectares nationwide.
Agricultural trade bodies lauded the move, projecting that unfettered trade flows will accelerate domestic rice shipments to traditional consumer markets in West Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Gulf, injecting approximately $3 billion in supplemental agricultural trade revenues. Grain market regulators affirmed that lifting the price restriction protects domestic farmgate returns during the peak arrival cycle while posing negligible upward risk to domestic consumer price indices.
Export control mechanisms under the Foreign Trade (Development and Regulation) Act 1992, the role of APEDA under the APEDA Act 1985, global food trade dynamics, and sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures under the WTO represent vital concepts in UPSC Civil Services (GS-III: Agricultural Trade and Public Finance). Candidates should note that India constitutes the world's leading rice exporter, historically supplying approximately 40 percent of total global cross-border rice trade, with APEDA facilitating export certification and quality standardization.