KARACHI: Matco Foods, Pakistan’s largest rice exporter, is going for listing in the stock market in September this year to raise funds for its new plant in Karachi. Faizan Ali Ghori, director, Matco Foods, in an interview with The News said that funds to be received through Initial Public Offering (IPO) of Matco Foods in September would be invested on a new plant in Karachi. Matco Foods has major stakes in Basmati rice. Being the largest Basmati exporter of Pakistan, it exports to around 65 countries. “Our brand ‘Falak’ is the largest selling Basmati brand from Pakistan,” he said. Matco processes around 100,000 tons of Basmati per year. It has also been financed by World Bank’s institute IFC. Ghori, who is also a member executive council of Rice Exporters Association of Pakistan (REAP), said Matco was also going in the business of other foods, as seller of imported biscuits, wafers, rice flour, gram flour, oil, pink salt, etc, since Pakistan has one of the highest consumption to GDP ratio in the world.   He said the company was investing in the new business of organic rice glucose and organic rice protein products, which would be used by other companies, mostly in their baby products. “Majority of glucose is extracted from corn, but in Europe and the US, corn syrup is being replaced with rice,” he said. “Since rice is not genetically modified, it is least likely to cause allergy.” Matco’s plant would have capacity of 10,000 tons per year of rice glucose and rice protein, and the plant would start operations this month at a preliminary investment of Rs350 million. Another plant of this type would be established at Port Qasim in the next phase, where a land of 10 acre has been purchased and further funds would be generated from the IPO. “In the next phase, we will develop dextrin (powdered) glucose,” Ghori said. Talking on Federal Budget 2017-18, he said overseas financing for warehousing would be beneficial for non-Basmati exporters, especially those who export to African countries, where Pakistan’s IRRI rice was mostly consumed as staple food. “People can establish their warehouses there and get financed,” he said. “We will have advantage in Kenya market with it.” This was a proposal of REAP, which was incorporated in the budget. Besides African countries, China is also a big market for IRRI. “Last year, Pakistan exported 0.5 million tons to China but this year it (China) is importing from Vietnam and other countries,” he said. Matco processes Basmati in all four types; unrefined brown rice, refined Basmati, parboil (sela) and steamed Basmati. “We are using latest technology and have imported machines from Japan and Germany,” Ghori said. He said alarmingly seed development was not here, so yield was too low. Hybrid seeds provided 90 to 100 maunds per acre in the world while our production was at a maximum level of 60 maunds. “No new variety of Basmati was developed after late 80s,” he said. “A famous Basmati variety 1,121 was developed in India and smuggled in Pakistan.” Matco exports around 80 percent of its production and sells 20 percent in the local market. However, it is planning 50 percent sales in the local market in the coming 5-6 years, as “People here are saving their time of rice cleaning and more people are going towards processed and cleaned rice,” he said. He suggested that Pakistan should focus on seed development, as plant scientists in India were doing, but regretted that the Rice Research Institute was not developing any seeds on commercial level. “Our yields are lowest per acre,” he said. “Mechanical transplantation should be here.” He said REAP has been suggesting the government to allow it to use Export Development Fund to use on farmers’ education and research. Matco is growing organic rice in Punjab while lands in Golarchi, Sindh is under conversion, as it takes three years to land for the conversion for organic plantation. “We have received USDA and EU organic certification,” he said. “Last year Matco exported 300 tons of organic rice.”

(Web Desk) -- Finance Minister Ishaq Dar is to present the federal budget for the fiscal year 2016-17 on Friday in the National Assembly (NA) and Dunya News brings to you the live updates:

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Live Updates:

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17:53 - 38 billion rupees to be allocated for improving water reservoirs. 17:49 - Pakistan had 1200 megat watts surplus in 1999 and it went several thousand mega watts in deficit. But next year, this load shedding will have become history. 17:48 - Most of the population expected to remain below 20 years of age in the ongoing census. 17:48 - Rs 411 billion allocated for transport sector, including highways, railways and aviation. 17:46 - Mobile telephone companies  accessories import duties to be reduced. 17:46 - Withholding tax and excise duties on mobile phone to be reduced. 17:45 - First year to be exempted from tax for IT companies setting up in Pakistan. 17:44 - IT Software Park being made in Islamabad with the help of South Korea. 17:43 - Innovation Challenges Fund to be formed. 17:42 - Disaster Risk Management Fund has been formed with Rs 525.1 million for covering the risk of small businesses. 17:41 - Government to form e-banking department in State Bank for encouraging mobile banking. The project will cost Rs 2 billion. 17:41 - Subsidy on urea, fertiliser to continue. 17:40 - Pakistan Infrastructure Bank to be formed for project financing. Pakistan to own 20% of shares, World Bank to hold 20% shares and the rest to be owned by private organisations and financial institutions. 17:40 - Pakistan currently has a deficit of 1 million houses. 17:39 - Banks don t provide long-term loans for housing. Government to provide 40% credit guarantee to the banks and financial institutions for housing loans up to Rs 1 million. 17:38 - Custom duty on raw hides to be removed, overseas warehousing of rice to be permitted. 17:37 - Pakistan s exports dropped due to the drop in prices of agricultural products in the global market. 17:37 - Government to start brand development fund for textile industry. 17:36 - Textile import duty waiver to continue this year as well. 17:36 - Ad-hoc reliefs added in 2009-10 to be incorporated into the salaries. 17:34 - Government will encourage import of agriculture machinery by removing the custom and import duties on the import of combined harvester used for less than 5 years. 17:33 - Government will keep providing the electricity to agricultural tubewells at Rs 5.35 per unit during off-peak hours. 17:32 - State Bank working on linking banking system with land record management system. 17:32 - Sales tax on FDP to be reduced from Rs 400 per bag to Rs 100 per bag. 17:31 - Loans worth Rs 1001 billion to be provided for agriculture sector. 17:30 - Rs 50,000 loans for agriculture to be provided to farmers owning land less than 12.5 acres. Agricultural Development Bank of Pakistan will be leading the initiative while State Bank of Pakistan to suprevise. 17:28 - 118 billion rupees allocated for subsidy on electricity. 17:28 - Balochistan to especially benefit from the solar power projects during the next year. 17:27 - Subsidy to the households using less than 300 units will continue. 17:26 - The proverty survey of 2002 said the population living below poverty line was over 64% while it has dropped to less than 30% now. 17:26 - GDP growth rate target to be set at 6% for the next year. 17:25 - Agricultural tubewell electricity subsidy to continue. 17:25 - 5.5 million families to now receive funds from Benazir Income Support Program. 17:24 - Around 10,000 mega watts of electricity will be added to the national grid in the coming year, eliminating load shedding from Pakistan completely. 17:23 - Tax facilities will be provided to agriculture and IT sectors. 17:23 - We will raise the development budget by 40% i.e. 1001 billion rupees. 17:22 - Our budget deficit will be kept at 4.1% during the next financial year. 17:21 - We have to improve and consolidate the achievements of the current year in the FY 2017-18. 17:20 - Pakistan signed OECD convention as a part of reforms to attain tax transparency. 17:19 - Bills pertaining to income tax reforms were signed by this House during 2015-16 and it d help Pakistan to attain the improved levels of transparency globally. 17:18 - Government signed the OGP document recently after Pakistan was invited to the agreement as it completed all the requirements. 17:15 - Azan break 17:15 - Remittances woth 15.60 billion dollars were sent to Pakistan during current fiscal year during the first 10 months. 17:14 - Companies listed with the government will have to include women in the boards of directors. 17:12 - Pakistan s stock market was compared with the best stock markets of Asia. 17:11 - Pakistan s rating to improve from frontier market status to emerging market status on June 1 according to Standard & Poor s. 17:10 - Remittances are expected to rise during the last couple of months of the current financial year due to Ramazan and Eid festivals in May and June. 17:10 - FBR will be able to collect 3521 billion rupees during the current financial year. 17:09 - Services sector s GDP growth remained 5.98% during the current financial year. 17:09 - Agricultural GDP growth rate remained 3.46%. 17:08 - Per capital income rose by 22%. 17:07 - State Bank s interest rate brought down to the least in Pakistan s history. 17:06 - Budget deficit in 2012-13 of 8.2% has been reduced to 4.2% of the GDP this year. 17:05 - Opposition walks out of the House. 17:05 - Global ratings agencies improved Pakistan s ratings during the last four years. 17:05 - For the first time in Pakistan s history, the country s economic volume has risen to 300 billion dollars. 17:04 - Pakistan s financial performance remained better than most of the countries across the globe. 17:03 - Opposition chants slogans against the government as Finance Minister Ishaq Dar shares the financial performance during the previous year.  17:02 - Pakistan will be added to the G20 by 2030 17:01 - The GDP growth rate remained 5.3% during the current financial year. 16:57 - Ishaq Dar begins his budget speech. 16:51 - Leader of the Opposition, Khurshid Shah granted permission to take the mic before Ishaq Dar proceeds 16:45 - Speaker of the NA, Ayaz Sadiq presides over a session