Bangladesh reintroduces 28% tax on rice imports

Bangladesh has reintroduced a 28 percent tax on rice imports in the latest national budget to protect local farmers.

News Deskbdnews24.com
Published : 7 June 2018, 10:33 AM
Updated : 7 June 2018, 07:31 PM

Finance Minister AMA Muhith proposed bringing back the import duties in the budget presented to the parliament on Thursday. 

Bangladesh cut the import duty in two phases to 2 percent in 2017 after heavy flooding in haor areas devastated the Boro rice harvest and raised the price of the staple grain to a record high.

But a bumper rice harvest in 2018 has prompted the government to raise the rates once again to support local farmers.

“This year we have a bumper production in rice, thus to protect local farmers, 25 percent customs duty and 3 percent regulatory duty has been re-imposed on rice importation,” Muhith said.

The duty on locally produced starches, wheat, maize, potato and cassava, has also been rationalised to 15 percent customs duty and 10 percent regulatory duty.

Bangladesh’s rice output from the summer crop is likely to hit 19.7 million tonnes against the target of 19 million tonnes, Mohammad Mohsin, director general of the Department of Agricultural Extension, told Reuters in May.

According to the Food Ministry, Bangladesh imported a record of 3.7 million tonnes of rice between July of last year and April of this year.