Bangladesh will import 250,000 tonnes of rice from Vietnam at a high cost in a bid to ensure food security, a senior food official said on Friday. The price for 200,000 tonnes of 15 percent broken white rice to be supplied by Vinafood 2 is $545 a tonne, cost, insurance and freight, while the price for 50,000 tonnes of parboiled rice from the same company is $550, said Ahmed Hossain Khan, director general of the state grains buyer.
"Our main focus is to ensure food security in the wake of a global commodity price hike. That's why we had to go for costly imports to build up our reserves," he told Reuters. "We are now at a comfortable position and can start selling rice at a subsidised price in a large scale to help the poor and head off a domestic price hike," he said.
The contract is part of a combined 2.2 million tonnes of rice that Vietnam, the world's second-largest exporter after Thailand, expects to sell to Bangladesh, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines this year. In August, the government purchased 100,000 tonnes of 15 percent broken rice from Vinafood 2 at $389 per tonne.
The government is importing 1.5-1.8 million tonnes of wheat and rice in the year to June 2011, against nearly 550,000 tonnes in the previous year. The government's grain stocks stood at 830,000 tonnes and ships with 200,000 tonnes of wheat and 32,000 tonnes of rice are waiting at ports, which will soon add to the existing stocks, Ahmed said. The government imported 400,000 tonnes of rice and 300,000 tonnes of wheat during the July-December period.
India's Amira Foods has secured a tender to supply 50,000 tonnes of white rice to Bangladesh at $450 a tonne, including C&F liner out. The government, already battling high food inflation and where almost 38 percent of the more than 150 million people live on less than $1 a day, are seeing longer queues for subsidised rice, as prices of grains and other consumables surge.
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