The Advisor Council Committee on Economic Affairs in a meeting has approved separate proposals for importing 400,000 tonnes of wheat and 200,000 tonnes of rice within 15 days.
Interim government advisor for finance and commerce Dr Salehuddin Ahmed was in the chair held at Bangladesh Secretariat on Wednesday.
Usually, suppliers are given 42 days to supply the products as per the Public Procurement Law (PPA), 2006 and Public Procurement Rules (PPR), 2008.
However, after the ACCEA's approval, the supply tenure has been reduced to 15 days in order to facilitate quick import of food grains so that there is no shortage of food.
About the proposed import, the finance advisor told reporters after the meeting that the government initiated the move to import rice and wheat as it does not want to see a shortage of food supply. "These are not immediately required, but the government wants to keep our stock ready for supply," he added.
As per the proposal placed by the ministry of food, the government will import 200,000 tonnes of rice in fiscal year 2024-25 and 400,000 tonnes of wheat through the G2G (Government to Government) system. In the fiscal 2024-25, the government set a target for procuring 350,000 tonnes of rice from international sources and 1.923 million tonnes from domestic sources.
It has also set a target to procure 700,000 tonnes of wheat from the international market and 10,000 tonnes from the domestic market during fiscal 2024-25.
