Will not export rice
Food minister says
In the wake of newspaper reports, Food Minister Sadhan Chandra Majumdar yesterday said there should not be any problem over the price of rice.
Addressing a meeting with rice-mill owners at Khadya Bhaban, the minister said, “I’ve learned from newspapers that rice prices have gone up slightly in the last few days. However, our reserves are still high. Unlike onion prices, there shouldn’t be any problem over rice prices.”
Sadhan Chandra went on to say, “We are also monitoring the market. We’ve seen the price of fine grain rice going up a bit.”
The minister said there will be no export of rice. “For export, we would have considered fine grain rice which is what people consume regularly now. Hence, I cannot approve of its export.” He mentioned that open market sales (OMS) dealers refuse to buy rice from the government because of its lower price. “OMS dealers cannot sell rice at Tk 30 per kg, so they don’t want to take it. It doesn’t mean we have bad quality rice in our warehouses,” the minister added.