Rice price to come down with start of OMS

Hopes food minister

12 July 2010, 18:00 PM

Staff Correspondent

The price of rice would come down soon with the start of open market sales (OMS), Food and Disaster Management Minister Abdur Razzaque said yesterday. "The OMS would help bring down the price of rice," he told reporters without specifying when the OMS will start, after inaugurating a two-day workshop at a hotel in the capital. The National Food Policy Capacity Strengthening Programme (NFPCSP), Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and food ministry with support from the USAID and European Commission organised the workshop on "Research in support of food security policies: availability, access and nutrition issues". The minister's announcement comes a day after the rice millers suspended their previously imposed halt on supply of rice to the government from Sunday. Earlier on Sunday, the government warned the rice millers saying it would go for legal actions if they don't comply with the agreement on rice supply. However, price of coarse rice increased by 9.43 percent to Tk 28-30, while fine rice price increased by 4 percent to Tk 33-45 in a month. On year-on-year basis, the hike of rice price is 38 percent to 26 percent, according to the Trading Corporation of Bangladesh. Talking at the workshop, Abdur Razzaque said the government is now opting for a paradigm shift in food policy. "Earlier, we thought that if we have money, we could buy food. But now we opted to grow sufficient food," he said. The minister said the government has prepared a country investment plan (CIP) to increase productivity of food aiming to secure funds from the multilateral and bilateral partners. "Based on the CIP, Bangladesh has become the first country in Asia to qualify for a grant of over $50 million from Global Agriculture and Food Security Programme," Abdur Razzaque said. James F Moriarty, US ambassador in Dhaka, Brian Forey, EC delegation to Bangladesh, Dennis Sharma, acting head of USAID, Kostas Stamoulis, director of FAO headquarters and Ad Spijkers, FAO representative in Dhaka, Ciro Fiorillo, chief technical adviser of NFPCSP spoke at the inaugural session. Researchers, agriculturists and food experts from home and abroad are attending the workshop.