BD joining G20 AMIS to stay updated

Bangladesh is going to join the Agriculture Market Information System (AMIS) of Group of 20 (G20) to stay updated on global agricultural production and supply situation to ensure food security.
To this effect, the AMIS secretariat has given the green light to the agricultural ministry about the inclusion of Bangladesh as a member of the platform.
The agri ministry has thus written to foreign and commerce ministries, seeking their opinions regarding the proposal.

As Bangladesh is not a member state of the intergovernmental forum G20, Bangladesh has been formally invited to join the AMIS in consultation with member organisations and current participants.
The AMIS chair Dr Seth Meyer hoped the AMIS would benefit from Bangladesh insights, especially on rice markets and the overall food market situation of South Asia.
Last March, the inter-agency platform was approached by a Bangladesh delegation to explore options for being considered as one of the invited countries of AMIS, according to a source.
AMIS is an inter-agency platform to enhance food market transparency and policy response for food security, launched in 2011 by G20 ministers of agriculture following global food price hikes in 2007-08 and 2010.
Bringing together principal trading countries of agri-products, AMIS assesses global food supplies (focusing on wheat, maize, rice and soybeans) and coordinates policy action in times of market uncertainty.
The AMIS is composed of G20 members plus Spain and seven additional major exporting and importing countries of agricultural commodities.
Together, AMIS participants represent 80-90 per cent share of global production, consumption and trade volumes of the targeted crops.
By enhancing transparency and policy coordination in the global food market, AMIS has helped to prevent unexpected price hikes and strengthen global food security, according to the platform.
When asked, a senior official said, "Bangladesh will receive important data on the latest global agricultural production, supply situation, analysis, agricultural technology and training."
"We'll soon start official processing aiming to participate at the AMIS. We're working on the issue," he added.
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