A ship with 52,500 tonnes of government wheat arrived at Chattogram Port on Wednesday from war-torn Ukraine.
With this, the first ship from Ukraine carrying food grain has arrived in Bangladesh since the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine war in February 2022.
Chattogram District Food Controller Abdul Quader told The Business Standard, “We collected samples of wheat on Thursday from the Liberia-flagged ship in outer anchorage. Once the customs clearance and other ancillary processes are done, the ship Magnum Fortune will arrive at the specialised silo jetty to unload the import.”
The government procured the food grain on a government-to-government (G2G) basis last September. Another shipment of wheat from Russia is also in the offing, he added.
Earlier on 13 October, the Silak-2 carrying 52,000 tonnes of wheat arrived at Chattogram port from Russia.
Ukraine’s food exports came to a standstill after Russia imposed a naval blockade in the Black Sea off the coast of Ukraine last February, causing food shortages around the world. Poor countries, especially those dependent on Russia-Ukraine foodgrain reserves, are the worst sufferers.
Last August, Russia and Ukraine, with the mediation of Türkiye, signed a landmark deal with the United Nations, on resuming grain shipments through the Black Sea.
Under the deal, four ships with 115,000 tonnes of agricultural products left the Yuzhny, Chornomorsk ports of Ukraine for Africa, Asia, and Europe on 28 September. The ship “Magnum Fortune” left Chornomorsk port for Bangladesh with 52,500 tonnes of wheat among them, according to the Ukraine Agroconsult.com
According to the Ministry of Food, the country has only 2.13 lakh tonnes of wheat stock in government warehouses as of 9 November, which is lower than normal. Bangladesh has an annual demand of about 75 lakh tonnes of wheat. Of that, 10 lakh tonnes of wheat are produced locally and the rest of the demand is met by imports.
According to the Department of Food, the government meets the demand by importing only five lakh tonnes of wheat. The remaining 60 lakh tonnes of wheat is imported by private companies.
In fiscal year 2020-21, Bangladesh imported 45% of the total wheat from Russia and Ukraine, 23% from Canada, 17% from India, and the rest from a few other countries, according to National Board of Revenue (NBR) data.
Bangladesh’s wheat imports from the two countries stopped after the Russian invasion of Ukraine at the end of last February, when Bangladeshi traders increased wheat imports from India. However, India announced a ban on grain exports last May, causing a further increase in wheat prices here.
Source: Hellenic Shipping News
