The government is likely to review import levy and other tariffs on rice import to ease private procurement from international sources, to keep the local rice market stable.
Food Minister Sadhan Chandra Majumder on Monday said that the decision to encourage private rice imports was made at a food planning and monitoring committee meeting.
The current import duty on rice is 62.5%.
Majumder said they will propose the National Board of Revenue to make it duty-free altogether.
"We will propose the NBR for duty-free rice import. A government order (GO) will be issued after completing the vetting by the law, justice and Parliamentary Affairs Ministry," he also said.
The minister said it will hardly take a week to complete the procedure.
The summary along with the resolution of the meeting would be sent to the prime minister soon, he added.
The minister said discussions have been held on how to bring duty-free rice without affecting farmers, market and others.
In June, the price of the coarse rice of the seasonal Boro crop hit the maximum of Tk54, medium Tk62 and finer Tk89 a kg.
According to the Trading Corporation of Bangladesh and city groceries, rice prices have increased by Tk5-8 a kg at retail level in the last two weeks even during this peak Boro season.
Boro harvest is almost done as the Agriculture Ministry expects 20.9 million tonnes of rice from the season.
The current prices are 6-9% higher than last year's, said the state corporation.
Following market volatility, the Food Ministry started a countrywide drive against illegal hoarding of the staple last week.
Between August and October last year, the private sector imported nearly 0.3 million tonnes of rice as the government reduced import duty to 15% then.
The government itself also brought more than 0.6 million tonnes of rice in the outgoing fiscal year.
After October, the private sector almost stopped import as duty on rice was reset at the previous rate of 62.5%, according to insiders.