India’s wheat export restriction won't affect Bangladesh: Food Minister

The country will not face a food shortage and India's restriction on wheat export will not affect Bangladesh, Food Minister Sadhan Chandra Majumder said today.

He made the remark while visiting Sylhet and inspecting a government food reservoir in the district's Sadar upazila this afternoon (May 15, 2022), our local correspondent reports.

The food minister said, "Boro harvest incurred a little loss due to recent flash flood, but the harvest was huge and a strong reserve of paddy and rice will be maintained. We also have sufficient storage of paddy from last Aush and Aman season and the next Aman season will be good due to sufficient early rainfall."

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"Last year, we did not need to import rice and we made it possible with the production of our farmers," he said, adding that the government buys rice at a pre-set price so that the farmers can get a reasonable price in the market too.

The minister said, "Wheat export is not banned by the Indian government but restricted for commercial sales. This will have no impact on Bangladesh."

"We used to import wheat from Russia and Ukraine which is halted due to the raging war situation there. By this time, we have imported three tonnes of wheat from India and the import will be continued," he said.

He also said that the government is planning to build a silo of 25,000 tonne capacity in Sylhet to store paddy and rice.

The government is trying to import onion but the price will not increase further, he also said.