April 03, 2008	Thursday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 25, 1429

SHARM EL SHEIKH (Egypt): Bangladesh hopes to buy 3 million tonnes of wheat and rice on international markets in the next three months after a cyclone struck last year, a government official said.

“We need to import 1.5 million tonnes of rice and 1.5 million tonnes of wheat,” Mohammed Abdul Quadir, commercial counsellor of the country’s embassy in Russia, told Reuters at a grain conference in the Sinai resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh.

“There is a deficit that will have to be met with imports from the international community,” Quadir said. “This year production has been destroyed.” The US Agency for International Development said on Tuesday it would provide some 90,000 tonnes of food aid worth $67.8 million to Bangladesh this year.

The food aid will include wheat, yellow split-peas and vegetable oil for distribution among the Sidr-hit people and in flood prone areas in Bangladesh, a U.S. embassy official said.Retail prices of wheat, edible oil and pulses have doubled over the last 12 months.

A kilogramme of rice, wheat and pulses is sold at 40 taka ($0.668), 45 taka and 110 taka respectively, while edible oil is sold at around 110 taka per litre.

The November cyclone killed some 3,500 people and made millions homeless.—Reuters