Traders reluctant to import rice due to dollar markets turmoil

Staff Reporter :
Traders are reluctant in importing rice due to US dollar market turmoil.
Sources said that the Dollar crisis started in Bangladesh last year.
The Ukraine-Russia war increased the crisis.
Increase of fuel price and import costs and prices of consumers’ products intensified the dollar crisis. In the meantime, remittance inflow decreased notably.
It also made the dollar crisis harder.
Meanwhile, the government had taken initiatives to import rice in a bid to maintain rice market satisfactorily.
The country is supposed to import 10 lakh 10 thousand tonnes of rice to ensure sufficient stock and to check price hiking in the market.
On the other hand, the traders face risks of loss in importing rice as the US dollar prices is continuously going upwards.
In this situation, the government had decreased import tariff from 62 percent to 25 pc for increasing rice imports.
Yet the traders are unwilling to import the food crops from abroad.
Traders said those who had imported rice in the meantime, have faced huge losses.
On the other hand, several big merchants could open LC while the small businesses failed to do it due to lack of sufficient dollars, the traders said.
Importers said that the risks of huge loss in importing rice would remain until the dollar crisis is resolved.
This trend reflected negative scenario in the field.
The government had permitted companies to import 10 lakh 10 thousands tones of rice within four months from July to October.
In this view, the traders supposed to import eight thousands and 417 tonnes of rice on average every day.
In this account, the traders have had to import three lakh, 53 thousands and 500 ton rice in the last 42 days from July1 to 11 August.
But they had imported only 34 thousand tons of rice during the period from abroad.
“The rice price increased in India while the US dollar crisis remained in Bangladesh. In this situation the traders unlikely face huge risks of loss on importing rice,” said Shamsul Haque, President of Nilphamari Rice Mill Owners Association.
He said after importing rice they have to make it fine by cutting from mills which also increase the costs.
As a result, it would be hard to make profit from selling the imported rice, he added.
The businessman said if the dollar crisis is solved, the traders will be eager to import more rice.