DHAKA – Bangladesh’s food import bill is likely to rise 15 percent and reach 75 billion taka ($1.0 billion) in the current financial year as the government buys more grain to secure supplies amid soaring prices in global markets.
The original allocation of funds in the national budget for food imports in the financial year 2010-11 was 65 billion taka. “But we need an additional 10 billion taka to import increased volume of grains,” Food Director General Ahmed Hossain Khan told Reuters on Friday.
Bangladesh, which suffered badly during the 2008 spike in global food prices, says it wants to build reserves of basic commodities such as wheat, rice, oils and sugar to avoid future shortages and to minimise the impact of soaring prices.
The government, facing intense criticism for failing to control prices, is importing up to 2.2 million tonnes of grain – including 1.2 million tonnes of rice in the year to June, against nearly 550,000 tonnes in 2009-10.
It also plans to upgrade and build new warehouses to store 2.2 million tonnes of food grains over the next three year from existing capacity of 1.5 million tonnes, Ahmed said.
