Dhaka, May 22 - Disaster-prone Bangladesh ordered a ban on the export of all varieties of rice for six months to ensure enough supplies and control prices during the coming monsoon period of floods and storms, officials said on Friday.
The country produces enough rice to feed its more than 140 million people but still imports around 3 million tonnes of rice and wheat for emergency stocks. It allows the export of a small quantity of aromatic rice.
"The ban is to increase the supply of rice in the domestic market and curb price hikes," a commerce ministry official said.
Dishonest traders often sell other rice varieties to neighbouring countries, causing a shortfall in the local markets, officials said, without giving details.
"We are aware of such illegal trade but the authorities seem to turn a deaf ear to such problems," said a Dhaka businessman, requesting not to be identified.
Bangladesh, which expects to produce more than 34 million tonnes of rice and wheat in the year to June, up 15 percent from a year ago, is unlikely to buy rice this year, officials said.
The poor South Asian country, the world's second-largest rice importer, had to import rice worth over $800 million last year to meet a shortfall caused by natural disasters and to control rice prices that almost doubled, officials said.
They said food grain imports significantly dropped after bumper rice crops this season.
Soaring food prices are a major concern in Bangladesh because it often triggers political unrest.
The food stocks stood at more than 1.09 million tonnes at the end of March, up from 563,000 tonnes the previous year, food ministry officials said.