The ministry of food has proposed to reduce the import duty on rice to 10 percent in order to increase the supply of rice and keep the market stable.
A proposal in this regard has already been sent to the National Board of Revenue (NBR). They will issue a notification soon with the consent of the concerned department including the finance department, according to food ministry sources.
The proposal comes amid the increasing price of in the kitchen markets. The price of fine rice has gone up by 2 taka per kg in the capital as compared to last week. The government has claimed the price of coarse rice has remained unchanged despite the increase of fine rice.
Despite bumper yields of Boro and Aman in the country this year, the price of rice continues to rise at an unusual rate. To control the rice market, the government has opened up opportunities to import rice through the private sector.
Additionally, on December 27, the government reduced the import duty on rice from 62.50 percent to 25 percent.
As a result, after the reduction of import duty, there was a rush among the traders to bring rice.
Although the target was to import 10 lakh tons of rice privately, about 2-2.5 million tons of rice has entered the country so far.
However, the price of rice has not come down at the desired rate. On the contrary, the price of rice is increasing day by day.
Traders said the price of rice will come down only if the supply in the market is normal.
According to the government marketing agency TCB, the rice that was available at 50 taka per kg at this time last year is now Tk 60 per kg and the price of fine rice has increased by 13 percent in the last one year. In one year, the price of medium rice has gone up by 17 per cent and coarse rice by 37 per cent.
According to the information of February 25 at the website of the Ministry of Food, the government warehouse has a stock of 6,46,010 tons of food grains. Of this, 5,36,059 tons of rice and 1,08,000 tons of wheat.
Last year this time the stock was 16,26,097 tons. Of this, 14,08,098 tons of rice and 3,61,000 tons of wheat.
In the current situation, the Ministry of Food held virtual meetings with rice traders, importers, trade ministry and other stakeholders last week.
During the meeting, the rice traders were asked why the price of rice was going up and why importers are late to open the LC to bring rice.
In response, the traders pointed out various complications including harassment of trucks at the Indian border, opening of customs and LCs.
After the meeting, it was decided to further reduce the import duty to increase the supply of rice.
Last week, the Food Department summarized the proposal to reduce import duties by another 10 percent.
In almost a similar tone, several officials of the food ministry said if the import duty is reduced to 10 percent, the supply of rice will increase. Even if the price of rice does not come down, it will be stable. That is why it has been proposed to reduce the import duty on rice.
Cell to supervise rice import activities
A monitoring cell has been set up temporarily to supervise rice import activities. An office order was issued by the Food Division to form this cell last Monday. The three-member cell will be headed by Additional Director of the Food Division Moniruzzaman. In addition, Assistant Deputy Director Muhammad Abdul Malek Khandaker will be the associate head and high quality assistant Md. Bayazid Khan.
According to the office order, the cell will contact the contracting company for the import of rice and collect the amount of rice to be shipped with the name of the ship under the agreement.
Apart from this, it will also collect data on the arrival, unloading and floating quantity of supplier-based rice by contacting the Controller of Traffic and Conservation of Chittagong and Mongla.
The order also said that the cell would report daily to the Director General of the Food Division as per schedule.
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