India firm makes low offer in Bangladesh rice tender

Indian firm M. Sons Group made the lowest offer of $477.51 a tonne, including cost and freight, in a Bangladesh tender to buy 30,000 tonnes of non-basmati parboiled rice that opened on Thursday, a food official said. The tender was issued by the state grains buyer early this month, and shipment is within 40 days of signing the contract, which will take place after the cabinet committee's approval. The offer was $33.51 per tonne higher than the country's last tender that opened last week, in which the same firm submitted the lowest offer of $444 a tonne to supply a similar quantity of parboiled rice. The highest offer was $575 a tonne, made by the Thai firm Daow, the food official said. The government has doubled its planned rice imports for this year to 600,000 tonnes after wheat prices spiked due to export curbs in the drought-ravaged Black Sea region. Deals to ship around 345,000 tonnes of Black Sea wheat to Bangladesh have been cancelled so far. Chicago wheat futures hit a two-year high after Russia barred shipments in early August, and since then prices have fallen by more than 20 percent but are still well above levels before the surge. On Thursday, the Bangladesh state grains buyer issued one new tender to import 30,000 tonnes of parboiled rice and another to buy 50,000 tonnes of wheat, both with an offer deadline of Aug. 30. Bangladesh, the world's fourth-biggest rice producer, harvested a record high rice crop of more than 34.45 million tonnes in the year to June, but the government failed to procure enough rice locally. The government's food reserves have come under added pressure as it has started selling rice at subsidised rates to help the poor during the Muslim fasting month Ramadan and to contain food inflation, now running at nearly 11 percent. Besides issuing tenders, the government is also trying to buy grains through state-to-state deals to build buffer stocks, which stand at 700,000 tonnes against a target of 1.5 million tonnes. Bangladesh has signed a contract to import 100,000 tonnes of 15 percent broken rice with Vietnam's top rice exporter, Vinafood 2, at $389 per tonne, while negotiating to buy more rice from there, food officials said. India also has allowed the export of 300,000 tonnes of non-basmati rice and 200,000 tonnes of wheat to Bangladesh. Food security is a major concern for the government as nearly 38 percent of the country's population of more than 150 million still live on less $1 a day.