To keep the rice market stable, a letter to allow 23 private companies to import 79000 tonnes of rice has been sent to the commerce ministry.
This includes non-basmati parboiled rice 61000 tonnes and Atap rice 18000 tonnes.
The letter signed by the Additional Secretary of the Ministry of Food Md. Mujibur Rahman, said these individuals and organizations have been requested to allow the import of non-basmati boiled rice and atap rice in the specified quantity.
The letter further states that additional Import Permission (IP) issuance cannot be done. Imported rice cannot be repackaged in the name of any company. Rice should be sold in imported sacks.
According to the import conditions, the allotted importers have to market all the rice in Bangladesh by December 31. The quantity of imported rice, storage and marketing information should be informed to the concerned District Food Controller.
Earlier, the Ministry of Food had written to the Ministry of Commerce to allow 95 companies to privately import 409000 tonnes of parboiled and atap rice on June 30 to control the price of rice.
Following that, a letter was sent from the Ministry of Food to give permission to 125 companies to import 246000 tonnes in the second phase on July 4 and 182000 tonnes to 62 companies in the third phase on July 7.
After a few more steps a letter is sent to allow import and permission is also granted.
The government decided to import rice by reducing the duty to keep the rice market stable. On June 23, the National Board of Revenue
(NBR) issued a notification reducing the import duty on rice. Import duty on rice has been reduced from 25 percent to zero. Apart from this, the regulatory duty has been brought down from 25 percent to 10 percent.
As a result, the total duty on rice import decreased from 62 percent to 25 percent. The new duty exemption period will remain valid till October 31.
