The government has allowed 64 more traders to import over 0.171 million tonnes of rice to boost the supply of the staple in the domestic market as it struggles with containing the runaway prices, officials say.
With the new entrants, a total of 142 traders and persons have so far got permission for procuring a total of 0.676 million tonnes of rice.
Until January 07, the Office of Chief Controller of Imports and Exports under the commerce ministry issued import permits in favour of 29 traders to import a total of 0.33 million tonnes of rice.
According to the provision of the permission order, non-basmati rice with a maximum of 5.0 per cent broken grains can be imported by the private importers.
The traders have to release the imported rice in the market within 10 to 45 days. Private importers will get duty benefit only if they meet the conditions set by the government.
The importers will have to open Letters of Credit (LCs) within seven days from the date of getting import permission and the food ministry would have to be informed about it.
Traders having an allocation of 1,000/5,000 tonnes rice will have to sell 50 per cent of their imported rice within 10 days while the rest within a maximum of 20 days, according to the food ministry.
In the case of the permission given for importing 5001 and 50,000 tonnes of rice, traders will have to sell 50 per cent of their imported rice within 15 days while the rest within a month.
The governments has recently decided to import at least 1.0 million tonnes of rice from different countries to boost the state food grain reserve amid growing concerns over the second wave of the Covid-19.
Currently, the price of rice in the market is abnormally high. In this regard, the government instructed all field-level administration to strengthen monitoring so that manipulators cannot create volatility in the rice market.
Earlier, the commerce ministry had asked the Directorate of National Consumer Rights Protection to take stringent action against the traders, who will sell their rice at an abnormally high price.
Considering the overall needs, the government is giving priority to the rice import.
Until December 20, the government procured only 11,311 tonnes of rice and 257 tonnes of paddy against the target of 0.65 million tonnes of rice and 0.2 million tonnes of paddy in the current Aman season.
Despite all efforts of the government, the millers are found reluctant to sign deals with the authorities as the market price of rice is higher than that of the government, a senior official of the food ministry said.
The prices of rice have been rising in recent months. Even the ongoing peak Aman harvesting season could not reverse the uptrend. Coarse and medium varieties of rice are selling at between Tk 46 and Tk 56 a kg in Dhaka.
The government has planned to distribute over 2.4 million tonnes of food grain under its safety net programme, the official added.
Over 1.1 million tonnes of rice and wheat were distributed as of November 30, 2020.
