India-based M. Sons International made the lowest offer of $484.51 a tonne, including C&F liner out, in a Bangladesh tender to buy 30,000 tonnes of non-basmati parboiled rice that opened on Monday, a food official said. The tender was issued by the state grains buyer late last month, with a shipment deadline of 40 days after signing the contract, which will take place on approval of the cabinet purchase committee.
The offer was $8.09 per tonne lower than the lowest bid in Bangladesh's last tender on August 30 at $492.60 a tonne, compared with $477.51 in the previous tender. Strong demand from China, the world's biggest consumer and producer of rice, and Bangladesh has lifted prices of the grain in Asia, traders said.
Bangladesh, the world's fourth-biggest rice producer, harvested a record high crop of more than 34.45 million tonnes in the year to June, but the government failed to procure enough rice locally. The government doubled its planned rice imports for this year to 600,000 tonnes after wheat imports were hit by a spike in prices prompted by export curbs in the drought-ravaged Black Sea region.
Besides tenders, the government is also trying to import grains through state-to-state deals to build buffer stocks, which stood at 750,000 tonnes against a target of 1.5 million tonnes. It is buying 100,000 tonnes of 15 percent broken rice from Vietnam's top rice exporter, Vinafood 2, at $389 per tonne, while negotiating to buy another 100,000 tonnes from there, for which the firm has asked for a higher price, food officials said.