Govt curve import rule to control rice market

Business Report :

The government foresaw significant crop losses caused by floods during the last Aman season.
For stabiliziong the fluctuating rice market, the food ministry primarily relied on private sector imports rather than swiftly initiating its own rice import drive to replenish the dwindling stocks in public granaries.
The Directorate General of Food (DG Food) authorized the import of over 1.4 million tons of rice by 277 private importers between November 6 and 17 last year, setting December 22 as the deadline to complete the consignments. The deadline was later extended to January 15 this year, with hopes that private imports would sufficiently lower the high rice prices in the market.
However, this approach did not yield the desired results.
By mid-January, private importers had brought in just 1.3 lakh tons of rice, while the government had imported about 50,000 tons from India. This combined volume has been inadequate to curb the high rice prices, which increased by Tk4 per kilogram earlier this month.
On January 16, the government made amendments to the Public Procurement Rules during a meeting of the advisory council’s economic affairs committee, enabling the food ministry to conduct international rice import bidding within 15 days instead of the standard 42 days. Furthermore, it approved importing rice through G2G (government-to-government) agreements with Pakistan, a less common source of non-aromatic rice for Bangladesh.