By IANS
Dhaka : Bangladesh is to import 400,000 metric tonnes of rice from India to tide over its current shortage.
Dhaka, faced with an estimated shortage of a million tonnes, is also to import rice from Thailand and Vietnam.
Chief Advisor Fakhruddin Ahmed, who performs prime ministerial functions in the interim government, made the announcement after Foreign Advisor Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury spoke on telephone to External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, media reports said Sunday.
Ahmed said contracts to Indian parties have already been given out and talks initiated with Thailand and Vietnam.
He said a high-level government delegation would visit India this week to finalise the import of rice.
Media reports indicated that the import of the 400,000 tonnes is in addition to the 500,000 tonnes that India has pledged to sell under the food-for-aid programme in the wake of the Nov 15 cyclone that devastated Bangladesh’s crop.
Bangladesh government will procure the rice from Indian state agencies, said a foreign ministry handout.
Wishing each other “a happy new year”, they hoped that the bilateral relations between the two countries would further improve mutual benefits during the current year.
Speaking to the media, Iftekhar expressed satisfaction at the reported decision by the Indian government to lift a ban on Bangladeshi investments in India.
“My belief is that it will help those Bangladeshi businessmen who are eager to invest in northeastern India,” the adviser was quoted as saying by The Daily Star.
Bangladesh has been appreciative of the Indian gesture that has been made despite the domestic shortage in the public distribution system (PDS).
It has helped hold the price line of this staple diet. The prices rose by 54 percent in the last few months, but have been brought under control.
Economists say the ongoing crisis of rice is the result of government failure to ensure timely import needed to make good the production shortfall, caused by recurring floods and cyclone last year.
They believe at least 1.8 million tonnes of rice should have been imported in the first seven months of the current fiscal year to meet the domestic demand.