Bangladesh interim government has started importing rice from India. The first consignment of 27,000 tonnes of rice has arrived in Bangladesh through Chittagong port.
The consignment is part of an agreement to buy 200,000 tonnes of rice from India, a food official of Bangladesh said on Friday.
In a telephonic conversation, the official said, “There is no shortage of rice in Bangladesh at this moment. However, due to recent severe floods, the government has decided to import rice in order to avoid the crisis in the future.”
“Bangladesh interim government will import another 100,000 tonnes of rice from India through tender, in addition to 200,000 tonnes of parboiled rice”, he added.
“On top of the tenders, we have plan to import more rice from India through Government to Government (GtoG) level”, the official said.
Bangladesh has withdrawn all tariffs on rice imports to keep prices stable. A large amount of rice is being imported from India at the private level with zero duty import facility.
“Private importers have so far taken permissions from the government (of Bangladesh) to import 1.6 million tonnes of rice from India”, the official said.
“We have also signed a GtoG deal with Myanmar to import 100,000 tonnes of rice”, he said.
“We are discussing with Vietnam and Pakistan to import rice”, he added without details.
India already has expressed its desire to work with the interim government of Bangladesh. Pranay Kumar Verma, High Commissioner of India to Bangladesh recently said, “Even after the turbulent changes of August 5, I think we have engaged with the interim government of Bangladesh in full earnest”.
“If you look at the numbers, we have more trade in the last six months of this financial year than we had last year”, Verma added.
On August 5, a student-led movement ousted Sheikh Hasina as Bangladesh Prime Minister, after weeks of protests and clashes that killed over 600 people.
Hasina, 76, fled to India and an interim government led by Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus was formed.