Countries after countries have pursued restrictive export measures in response to the Ukraine conflict, thereby putting significant pressure on countries like Bangladesh that largely depend on imports for key food and fertilizer products.
The current spate of export restrictions by some countries are impacting over 31% of Bangladesh's imported food calories, says an export restriction tracker developed by Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institution (IFPRI).
IFPRI's Food and Fertilizer Export Restriction Tracker stated yesterday that the current share of restrictions on imported calories is 31.28% for Bangladesh. It was even higher at 38.60% during the height of restrictions imposed by exporting countries a few months ago.
The IFPRI findings are easily corroborated by official statistics that show the country's wheat import dropped by 25% from FY 2020-21 to FY 2021-22. Bangladesh is also facing troubles in sourcing some key farm inputs like potash and other chemical fertilizers.
With its yearly import volume hovering between 6 to 7 million tons, Bangladesh has been one of the world's top five wheat importing countries. But in the aftermath of Russia's Ukraine invasion and resultant economic sanctions and export restrictions by various countries, Bangladesh's wheat import witnessed a historic low of only 4 million tons in the last financial year, down from over 5.3 million tons in the previous fiscal.
Bangladesh Food Ministry statistics show both the private and public sectors managed to import 4 million tons of wheat in 2021-22 though letters of credit for over 7.5 million tons of wheat were opened. After India restricted export of wheat in recent months, Bangladesh as its immediate neighbour managed to get 150,000 tons of wheat supply but also tried to negotiate at government-level deal to source more wheat from Russia. For Bangladesh, importing wheat from India is both time and cost-effective.
The Food Ministry says it has only 150,000 tons of wheat in stock at public granaries. This is half of the wheat volume the government had in stock around the same time last year. Two ships with a load of about 100,000 tons of wheat imported by private traders are now on their way to Chittagong Port.
The government says low stock and dwindling imports of wheat is one reason why rice prices have shot up in the domestic grain market in recent weeks forcing Bangladesh to allow private importers to start importing rice from India. It is expected that Bangladeshi importers would import up to one million tons of rice from India within October, as a government-provided low-tax import window facility would expire by then unless extended further.
<Current export restrictions>
According to IFPRI tracker, India and Afghanistan's wheat export restriction will remain in force till December 31 this year, India's sugar export restriction will remain in force till end-October, Iran's export ban on potato, tomato, onion, brinjals and Pakistan's sugar export ban will continue up until December, up until August Russia is keeping the curb on its exports of oilseeds and sugar,
The IFPRI tracker also notes that Russia's restriction on fertilizers will remain in force till August 31, while China put a ban on phosphate rock export throughout 2022.
While Bangladesh is at the receiving end of many of these export restrictions imposed by several countries, the country itself has also banned the export of some products. The export ban Bangladesh put recently on rice (aromatic) will expire by the year-end.
