Dhaka, May 8 - Bangladesh has banned exports of rice for six months after prices at home doubled in a year causing widespread hardship to the country's impoverished millions, an official said Thursday.
Bangladesh is a net rice and wheat importer but last year exported rice worth $5.5 million to countries with expatriate Bangladeshi populations, said commerce ministry deputy secretary Abu Sayeed Chowdhury.
"Bangladesh has banned exports of all kinds of rice except aromatic rice for six months. The ban was imposed to increase the supply of rice in the domestic market and help control the high prices," he said.
Last year Bangladesh produced 30.5 million tons of rice and also imported around 2.5 million tons.
But damage to crops caused by floods last summer and last November's Cyclone Sidr were expected to leave a 3.1-million-ton shortfall in the domestic market for the year ending in June 2008, according to officials.
Some 400,000 tons of rice are expected to be imported from India by the end of May to sell below cost on the open market in a bid to ease spiraling prices.
Rising food prices are a big concern for most people in Bangladesh, where about 40% live on less than a dollar a day and poor households spend nearly 70% of their income on food.
Annual food inflation reached 16% in December and many poor Bangladeshis say the price hikes have forced them to get by on just one meal a day or less.
Last month the head of the army urged citizens to supplement their diet with potatoes.