Nepal bans rice and wheat export

Published: 7:26PM Thursday May 01, 2008 Source: Reuters

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Nepal has banned the export of foodstuffs, including rice, to prevent shortages, officials said, joining other South Asian countries scrambling to tackle rising prices and food insecurity.
   
Nepal's ministry of supplies said the decision to ban exports of rice, paddy and wheat was taken to maintain stocks after India, the main supplier of rice to the Himalayan country, banned export of the non-basmati variety.
   
Nepal, not a major producer of foodstuffs, mostly exports wheat flour to China and basmati rice to Bangladesh.
   
"The ban is to rein in price hikes and avoid any food crisis," Gyan Darshan Udhas, a supplies ministry official, said.
   
Nepal, which harvested some 4.3 million tonnes of rice in 2007, saw the price of the staple go up by almost 30% in the past three months, primarily because of the rising prices in international markets, Nepal's central bank said.
   
India's ban on rice exports too had directly affected basic foodstuff prices in Nepal.
   
The United Nations World Food Programme warns that about 3.8 million people in Nepal would face food insecurity because of a sharp increase in food prices and political instability in the country's southern plains, the country's industrial heart bordering India.
   
"There is no stock building by consumers yet, but the situation can turn bad if prices keep rising," said Pabitra Bajracharya, chief of Nepal's retailers association.

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