**2.3 Economic importance of aromatic rice in India**

World trade of aromatic rice mostly includes Basmati and Jasmine types of varieties and India is leading exporter of Basmati in International market. In year 2019–2020, India has exported 4.45 million MT of Basmati to Iran, Saudi Arab, Iraq, UAE, Kuwait (major countries which import Basmati from India), US, UK,

Singapore and Malaysia; earning 4,330.68 million USD. Major export of Basmati from India is headed to Asian countries (Middle East) followed by Western Europe [7]. Besides, milled Basmati, parboiled Basmati called as Sella Basmati rice in India and Middle East; and Cooked Basmati in United Kingdom [8] is also exported from India. Nearly half of the exported Basmati to Gulf countries (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and UAE) as well as UK and USA, includes Sella types of Basmati [7]. Earlier, Traditional Basmati viz., Basmati-370 and Taraori Basmati dominated the export of Basmati from India. In early 1990s, an evolved Basmati variety PB-1 replaced them and ruled Basmati export. Currently, PB1121 is the major Basmati variety exported from India; which has an exceptional kernel length (approximately 9 mm) and elongation ratio of 2.7 [9]. Cooked kernels of PB1121 attain a maximum length of 21.0 mm to 21.5 mm which maximum known in any rice germplasm [9]. It occupies 47% of Basmati growing area, followed by PB 1509 (26%), PB-6 (9%) and PB-1 (8%); (APEDA, [10], Basmati Survey Report, *Kharif*, Volume 2).
