WB to lobby India to export 0.4m tonnes of rice to Bangladesh

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FE Report
The World Bank will lobby the Indian government for the export of 0.4 million tonnes of rice to Bangladesh to help Dhaka cope with food crisis, a top official said Wednesday.
"We hope to go to New Delhi to take up the case of rice export with the Indian government," Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the bank's managing director, said, after concluding her four-day visit to Bangladesh.
The bank's pledge came as Indo-Bangla talks on the planned shipment of 0.4 million tones of rice to Dhaka ended inconclusively on Tuesday, with New Delhi asking for $550 for per tonne, apparently breaching their previous commitment.
New Delhi had agreed to sell half a million tones of rice at US$399 per tonne, during the secretary-level negotiations in January and February. But so far it agreed to ship only 100,000 tonnes of rice at that price.
The bank's managing director said she could not guarantee that her move would be successful.
"I'm not promising … We can add voice. We'll try to be helpful, but can't say whether our efforts will be successful or not," Okonjo-Iweala, who once served as the finance minister of Nigeria, said.
She defended the caretaker government's handling of the price shocks, saying: "The rise in commodity prices is not unique to Bangladesh. Even the United States, Russia, Nigeria and India are grappling with the issue. It's the number one culprit."
"It is not an easy job for any government to handle the crisis," she said.
"You can handle it many ways: imports, use of stocks or targeting the poorest by providing subsidies," she said.
She added the bank is helping the government design a plan to make sure food subsidies reach the "most vulnerable."
Praful Patel, the bank's South Asia chief, supplemented his boss, saying there are international best practices in delivering food aid in an effective way and the bank would support the government to replicate those.
The visiting WB managing director also rubbished claims by the former adviser and an ex- alternative director of her bank, Akbar Ali Khan, that a 'silent famine' is going on in the country.
"I've visited the countryside for the last few days and talked to people. And I've not found any evidence of famine prevailing in the country," she said.
"People say prices are going up," she said and agreed that people were struggling with prices.
She said the World Bank provided Bangladesh $100 million for post-cyclone recovery and another $50 million was in the pipeline for the repair of damaged infrastructure.