CHITTAGONG: Banglar Kallol, a cargo ship of Bangladesh Shipping Corporation (BSC), left the Chittagong port on Saturday with 12,500 tonnes rice for the Colombo port of Sri Lanka.

This was the second installment of rice exported to Sri Lanka.

On December 28 of 2014, Banglar Kakoli left the port for Sri Lanka with 12,500 tonnes rice through which Bangladesh started exporting a large volume of rice though the country used to export a limited quantity of fragrant rice earlier.

Food ministry sources said the High Commissioner of Sri Lanka recently met Bangladesh foreign ministry officials and gave proposals for purchasing rice from Bangladesh at G2G level.

Earlier, Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed, in the ‘Fourth Agro Expo’ held on September 17 of 2014, announced to export rice from 50,000 to 100,000 tonnes to the country.

After getting no objections from commerce and agriculture ministries, the cabinet committee gave approval to export rice. Currently, Sri Lanka imported 25,000 tonnes of rice as there might be problem in unloading the rice during the monsoon.

Ministry sources said that the amount of reserved rice in government godowns was 11 lakh tonnes till August of 2014 which was 250,000 lakh tonnes more than that of previous year.

Considering the reserve position, the food ministry opined that from 50,000 to 100,000 tonnes of rice can be exported.

On December 3, Director General of Food Directorate M Sarwar Khan and Nalin Fernando, chairman of Lanka Sathosha Limited, signed an agreement on behalf of respective governments in this regard. Each ton of rice was priced at $450.

After signing of the agreement, food minister Advocate Quamrul Islam said that current food reserve in the country is 12 lakh tons which is 250,000 tonnes more than that of the past year.

He added: “Bangladesh is ready to export about 100,000 tons of rice at the demand of any country.”

According to food ministry sources, reserve of food in the country till December 22 of 2014 was 12.82 lakh tonnes. Of the total reserve, 11.51 tonnes are rice and the rest 1.33 lakh tons are wheat. Moreover, 0.33 lakh tonnes of food grain is awaiting unloading at Chittagong port.

BDST: 1832HRS, JAN 10, 2015