Bangladesh rice tender: India’s Bagadiya Brothers offer most competitive

India’s Bagadiya Brothers has come up with the most competitive offer in Bangladesh’s tender to import 50,000 tonnes of parboiled price, outbidding three other firms.

Bagadiya Brothers, which has bagged quite a few tenders in the recent past with such competitive offers, quoted $393.90 a tonne including cost and freight, trade sources said.

The next best competitive offer was from Singapore’s Agrocorp International Ptd Ltd, which offered the rice at $401.55 a tonne. BSE-listed Haldar Ventures quoted $407.09 for its offer, while Kribhco Agribusiness Pvt Ltd, an arm of fertiliser cooperative Kribho, quoted $427. 

The bids, which were invited on December 6, were opened today. Another tender inviting bids was floated on December 12 and will be opened on December 27. 

The tender in line with Bangladesh’s demand for rice for public distribution as well as private trade.

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The Sheikh Hasina Wajed Government has approached the Narendra Modi government to import 5 lakh tonnes of parboiled rice on a government-to-government basis. The issue will likely figure at talks between Bangladesh Commerce Minister Tipu Munshi, who landed in New Delhi on a five-day visit, and his Indian counterpart Piyush Goyal. 

According to the sources, Bangladesh has turned to India as it has not been able to find parboiled rice at a competitive rate from other competing countries such as Thailand and Pakistan. 

Indian parboiled rice is currently offered at $373-77 a tonne free-on-board compared with $474 quoted by Thailand and $453-57 offered by Pakistan. 

Though the Wajed government says it has ample rice stocks, it has begun importing rice to prevent any crisis. In Bangladesh, rice prices have spiked over the past few weeks as its paddy crop has been affected by weather - floods and then dry weather. 

India may not have any problem supplying parboiled rice to Bangladesh since its exports have not been curbed. In its order curbing rice exports from September 9, the government banned shipments of fully broken rice and imposed a 20 per cent export duty on non-basmati white rice. 

Parboiled and Basmati rice are exempt from any curbs. However, domestic rice prices have been rising on fears that the kharif paddy crop may be lower due to deficient rainfall in some of the key growing areas. 

The Agriculture Ministry in its first advance estimate has pegged rice kharif production at 104.99 million tonnes (mt) against 111.76 mt last year.  

According to the Agricultural and Processed Food Exports Development Authority (APEDA), non-basmati rice exports in the first half increased to 8.96 mt against 8.23 mt a year ago with the shipments fetching $3.03 billion against $2.97 billion.

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