The government yesterday approved the import of 50,000 tonnes of rice from India in order to increase the country's food stock and control spiralling prices.

The cabinet committee on government purchase approved the food department's proposal to import 50,000 tonnes of non-basmati boiled rice from M/s PK Agri Link Private Limited for about Tk 177 crore through an international tender.

The meeting was chaired by Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal.

At a press briefing after the meeting, Cabinet Division Additional Secretary Shahida Akhter said that food ministry officials contacted India, Thailand and Myanmar to import rice.

They eventually decided to approve imports from the Indian firm since it was the lowest bidder.

The price of rice bought from PK Agri Link would be around $ 430 per tonne, she added.

With the latest approval, the government has so far taken steps to import a total of 13 lakh tonnes of rice.

On March 10, the government approved three proposals to import a total of 3.5 lakh tonnes of rice from India, Thailand and Vietnam under state-to-state arrangements.

In the early weeks of this month, the government took the initiative to import 5.5 lakh tonnes of rice through an international open tender.

To expedite these imposts, the economic affairs committee on March 3 approved a proposal for shortening the bidding process from 42 days to 10.

Last month, separate agreements were signed to import 4 lakh tonnes of rice, of which 3 lakh tonnes will be purchased through international tenders while the remainder will be sourced from India under a government-to-government arrangement.  

However, some remain sceptical about the success of these efforts.

As of March 22, the government has imported 1.73 lakh tonnes of rice.

According to the food ministry, the country's food stock stood at just 5.33 lakh tonnes till March 22. Of these stocks, 4.56 lakh tonnes were rice and the rest was wheat.

The food ministry considers stocks of around 10 lakh tonnes of rice as safe.

The committee also approved a proposal to purchase 33.6 lakh MMBTUs of liquified natural gas (LNG) from the spot market.

As per the proposal, submitted by Petrobangla, a corporation of the energy and mineral resources division, 33.6 lakh MMBTUs of LNG will be imported from US firm Excelerate Energy LP at a cost of Tk 218.07 crore.

Each MMBTU will cost $6.53.

This is the government's fourth move to buy the fuel from the spot market.

On March 10, the government approved two proposals to purchase 67.2 lakh MMBTUs of LNG from the spot market for Tk 527.24 crore from Singapore and Switzerland.

One of those proposals was to purchase 33.6 lakh MMBTUs of LNG from a Singaporean company, Vitol Asia Pte, at a cost of Tk 248.53 crore.

Each MMBUT will cost $ 7.44.

The other proposal was to buy 33.6 lakh MMBTUs from AOT Trading AG of Switzerland at a cost of Tk 278.70 crore while the fuel is priced at $8.345 per MMBUT.

On February 17, the government approved two proposals to buy 67.2 lakh MMBTUs of LNG from the spot market for Tk 623 crore to meet growing local demand.

At last month's meeting, the cabinet approved the purchase from Vitol Asia.

In September last year, the government moved to the spot market for the first time to purchase the super-chilled fuel at a cheaper rate.

At the time, Vitol Asia won the work order to deliver 3,490,200 MMBTUs for Tk 132.93 crore.

With these two, the meeting yesterday approved a total of six proposals involving Tk 1,493.50 crore.

Of this amount, Tk 958.95 crore would be funded by the government while the rest Tk 534.54 crore would come from foreign aid (ADB, AFD and EIB loans).