New Delhi, May 7 - India will decide by June whether to allow limited rice exports to some neighbouring states which have called for shipments to resume, but has no plans to significantly relax export curbs soon, a top food ministry official said.
India, the world's second-biggest rice exporter in 2007, began imposing restrictions on overseas sales last year.
It finally banned non-basmati shipments in March, one of a series of protectionist measures that triggered a wave of panic buying, causing benchmark Thai prices to nearly treble to over $1,000.
"There are some requests from certain countries at diplomatic levels," T. Nand Kumar, the country's food secretary, told Reuters in an interview, the first time an Indian official has acknowledged pressure from other governments to resume sales.
"I suppose they will be looked at rather than an open thing on exports."
The pressure on New Delhi underscores the growing anxiety around the world over food supplies at a time when the price of most staple crops has doubled or more in the past year, fuelled in part by suppliers moving to fight domestic inflation by forcing farmers and traders to keep more supplies at home.
"There are so many requests pending. We have to take a very close look at what is available," Kumar said, adding that the sales volumes would be small, totalling much less than 1 million tonnes.
He declined to specify which countries had asked New Delhi to allow exports, but said they were either neighbours or countries with which India had a "strategic interest".
Indian rice is normally sold to big Middle Eastern buyers like Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, all important suppliers of crude to Asia's third-largest economy.
India has already allowed exports of about 400,000 tonnes to Bangladesh, equivalent to about one-tenth of last year's total shipments, and some to Nepal and Bhutan.
He said the government was likely to maintain restrictions on most exports until October, when new season rice would be harvested, despite early indications that the spring crop will be more than enough to meet domestic needs.
Apprehending a sharp rise in overseas sales, India banned exports of non-basmati rice in March and slapped an export tax of 8,000 rupees ($200) per tonne on basmati shipments.
Kumar said India might consider lowering the minimum export price of $1,000 per tonne that it has fixed on basmati rice exports but only if global prices ease.
"Looking at food security across the world in the past two years, I think we'll have to take a very clear line about how much we can export and how much we cannot," he said.
WHEAT STOCKS
India is also likely to take advantage of this year's bumper wheat harvest to set up a government-run stockpile of up to 3 million tonnes, Kumar said, confirming for the first time New Delhi's plans for a strategic reserve.
He said the government could make a decision on whether to proceed by mid-June, once the full wheat crop has come to market, confirming for the first time local media speculation about plans to develop a government-held reserve.
"A similar quantity of rice may be for later, not immediately," he added.