Bangladesh will import 500,000 tonnes of rice to beef up stocks to meet its post-flood emergency needs, a senior government food official said on Thursday. The Bangladesh Food Department has a satisfactory stock of 556,000 tonnes of rice to meet emergency situations, but it plans to increase stocks through more imports.
The decision to import was taken after the government food department failed to procure a targeted 1.2 million tonnes of rice from domestic sources since June.
"We could procure only about 700,000 tonnes of rice from the domestic market against the target," Molla Waheeduzzaman, director-general of Food department, told Reuters.
Officials said demand for rice, the country's main staple, was likely to rise due to crop losses from floods, which killed nearly 1,100 people and damaged crops covering over 700,000 hectares (280,000 acres), according to a preliminary estimate. Earlier in July, Bangladesh set a goal to import 450,000 tonnes of rice and 350,000 tonnes of wheat to meet domestic demand. The process of import via tender is in progress, another official said.
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