The Indian government imposed a new condition on exports of non-basmati rice by amending its policy on rice exports.
On Wednesday, the Indian government announced that exports of non-basmati rice would be permitted only after registration with Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority or APEDA.
However, Bangladeshi rice importers have stated that India鈥檚 recently amended policy on rice exports might not have any impact on rice imports from the neighbouring country.
APEDA is an arm of the Indian commerce ministry dealing with agricultural export-related issues.
鈥楨xport policy of Non-Basmati Rice has been amended by incorporating an additional policy condition to the extent that export of Non-Basmati Rice shall be permitted only upon registration of contracts with the APEDA,鈥� the Directorate General of Foreign Trade said in a notification.
India is one of the world鈥檚 top rice exporters and the country鈥檚 non-basmati rice export earnings increased by 6.4 per cent to $4.7 billion during the April-August period of the current fiscal year, according to a report of the Economic Times.
According to reports from Indian media outlets, the Indian government imposed new conditions amid reports of crop damage in several states, including Punjab, Haryana and West Bengal, due to heavy rains and floods.
The decision was highly applauded by the Indian rice traders, reports said.
Although Bangladesh is one of the major importers of Indian rice, it remains uncertain how this amendment will affect the rice market in Bangladesh.聽
鈥榃e don鈥檛 see any impact of the Indian decision yet and we are still unclear about the potential impact,鈥� said Kawasar Alam Khan, vice-president of the Bangladesh Rice Merchant Association.
He also told the 抖阴精品 that Bangladesh was once heavily dependent on India for rice imports, but now it imported from other sources as well.
鈥楳oreover, our domestic production is good; we only import when the domestic production curtails due to any unavoidable reason,鈥� he added, saying that they also had聽supply sources like Vietnam, Pakistan and Myanmar.
He stated that Bangladesh imported approximately 4,00,000 tonnes of rice from India during the past financial year of聽2024-25.
According to the Ministry of Food, Bangladesh imported over 1.3 million tonnes of rice in the 2024-25 financial year, the second highest in its history.
Moreover, the import of rice witnessed a staggering 2,584 per cent increase, reaching $682.4 million, in FY25, according to Bangladesh Bank data.
Officials of the Directorate General of Food claimed that more than 1 million tonnes of rice were spoiled due to three consecutive floods across the country in the previous financial year, which prompted the government and private sector traders to import rice to replenish food reserves and stabilise markets.
However, the food directorate officials said, the country might not need to import rice in such high amounts as domestic rice production remained adequate.聽
Meanwhile, on August 11, the government permitted 242 companies to import 4.61 lakh tonnes of rice amid concerns that Aman rice production might be impacted by recent flooding and rainfall.
According to the provisional estimates from the National Accounts Statistics of FY25, published by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, rice production reached over 4 crore tonnes in FY25.
Among them, Aus rice production accounted for 27.93 lakh tonnes, Aman rice 1.66 crore tonnes and Boro rice 2.12 crore tonnes in FY25.
According to Bangladesh Trade and Tariff Commission, the annual demand of rice is about 3.8 crore tonnes.
