Rice imports jump manifold on duty cuts

Bangladesh has been importing about 7,000 tonnes of rice a day since the government slashed duty to make up for crop losses in two consecutive floods.

Abdur Rahim Badal Chief Economics Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 24 August 2017, 01:33 PM
Updated : 24 August 2017, 01:33 PM

The government and private traders have imported about 352,000 tonnes of rice in the first 51 days of the current fiscal year, which is three times the amount purchased in the entire previous year.

Private traders accounted for 76 percent of rice imports.

Data from the food ministry shows the government and private traders imported 133,000 tonnes of rice in fiscal 2016-17.

After losses suffered in early floods, the import duty for Bangladesh’s staple grain was brought down from 25 percent to 10 percent on Jun 20. A 3 percent regulatory duty required to import rice was also withdrawn.

The amount was further slashed to 2 percent on Aug 16 amid concerns over depleting reserves and further crop losses in monsoon flooding.

The government has been floating tenders besides opening the way for more private imports by cutting duty, which has led to a huge increase in rice imports from India via land routes.

Aush and Aman production suffered huge setbacks in August floods, said Food Minister Qamrul Islam.

“This crisis made us decide to bolster national reserves by importing 1.5 million tonnes of rice in the current fiscal year.”

Bangladesh was not under a food crisis, he reiterated. “We have enough food grains in stock, the market too has enough. We have been importing rice in a solely precautionary move to avoid any future problem,” he said.      

Early floods in April damaged wetland rice fields in the northeast districts, causing production to fall by 2 million tonnes.

The government had 316,000 tonnes of rice on Aug 21, compared to 719,000 tonnes a year ago, the food ministry’s data shows.