DHAKA: Bangladesh will import 900,000 tonnes of rice to boost its stocks to 1.2 million tonnes in the fiscal year ending June 2011, Food and Disaster Minister Abdur Razzaque said on Friday.
Rice is the main staple of a population of more than 150 million, around 38 percent of whom are poor, living on less than $1 a day.
"To boost the food stocks and make the market stable, we took the decision to import more grains," Razzaque told Reuters.
The ministry had earlier set a target to import 300,000 tonnes of rice for the fiscal year.
He said the government would also import an additional 250,000 tonnes of wheat besides an earlier targeted 750,000 tonnes for the current fiscal year.
"The decision we took against the backdrop of sharp price hikes in daily necessities like rice, wheat, lentils and edible oil," Razzaque said.
The government would import 200,000 tonnes of sugar through the state-run Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB), the minister said. Razzaque said 200,000 tonnes of crude soybean and palm oil would also be procured from the international market.
"TCB will require $1.5 billion to import the essentials to cool the market and the funds will come from the government," the minister said.
The agency will also import 10,000 tonnes of lentils to boost stocks to 25,000 tonnes.
"These will be our measures in addition to import from the private sector. We are worried over the prices and stocks of food items in the international market and that's why we took such steps," food minister said.
Razzaque said domestic rice prices had climbed higher even in the full harvest season because mill owners stockpiled it to sell at higher prices in future.
Government warehouses now have stocks of 822,000 tonnes of rice and wheat, he added.
Razzaque said 600,000 tonnes of rice and 500,000 tonnes of wheat would arrive by next April.
"On Sunday, we have signed an agreement with the Vietnamese government to import 250,000 tonnes of rice and we hope the entire quantity will arrive at the end of February."
Bangladesh will require about 1.14 million tonnes of rice and wheat by next April, he said, adding that since the country's boro variety of paddy will be harvested by May, 786,000 tonnes of food grains would be surplus in government warehouses.
Razzaque said a total of 380,000 tonnes of rice had already been imported and letters of credit (LC) for 600,000 tonnes more had been opened up.
He said the remaining 250,000 tonnes of rice would mainly be imported from Thailand and Pakistan.
"We are in negotiations to import 300,000 tonnes of rice from India."
But if India did not agree then Bangladesh had options to import from Thailand and Pakistan, he added.
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