Rice export to Sri Lanka will start soon as the Ministry of Commerce (MoC) has amended the Statutory Regulatory Order (SRO) -- a hurdle in the way of the country's move to shipment of food grain, officials said.
The export will be under government-to-government (G-to-G) arrangement.
"We have amended the SRO recently that will allow the government to export 50,000 tonnes of boiled rice to Sri Lanka," a high official at the MoC told the FE.
He said the Ministry of Food (MoF) had asked the MoC on September 30 last to bring in some changes to the SRO to facilitate rice export to Sri Lanka.
The MoC, through an SRO in June 2014, imposed a ban on export of all varieties of rice, except the aromatic one, until June, 2015.
He said the amended SRO has the provision that allows the government to export rice to any country on a G-to-G basis.
The official of the MoC said they have informed the Ministry of Food (MoF) about the development, facilitating it to take necessary steps for the shipment of rice to Sri Lanka.
A high official at the MoF told the FE that the Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs had vetted the MoF export strategy and gave its nod to the initiative.
"Now we are waiting for response from Sri Lanka to start the export," the official said.
Earlier, the two countries had agreed that the export price of per tonne of rice would be US$ 450 (including shipment, insurance and other costs).
The cabinet committee on economic affairs approved the proposal on September 18 last for exporting 50,000 tonnes of boiled rice to Sri Lanka. And the officials of the two countries held meetings recently over the export of rice.
According to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), the country's rice production was about 34.36 million tonnes in the fiscal year (FY) 2013-14, nearly 0.6 million tonnes higher than that of the previous fiscal.
The total stock of food grains in the country is now 1.49 million tonnes. Of the quantity, 1.14 million tonnes are rice while 0.34 million tonnes wheat and 10,098 tonnes paddy, according to the Directorate of Food.
Despite production growth, around 0.5 million tonnes of rice were imported by the country's private sector in the last fiscal.
Meanwhile, local rice traders have ruled out any negative impact of the proposed rice export amid better supply of the staple food, both at the private and the government levels.
"The stock of rice in the warehouses of both public and private sectors is satisfactory. So, the proposed rice export will not create any adverse impact on the domestic rice market," an influential leader of the Bangladesh Auto Major and Husking Mill Owners Association, told the FE.
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