Bangladesh Government Closes Nearly 2,000 Rice Mills

The Bangladeshi government has scrapped the licenses of almost 2,000 rice mills as they ignored official demands to sell the grain to the army-backed government at below-market rates.

According to Bangladesh's food ministry information officer Golam Kibria, the government wants to buy 1.5 million MT of rice from local markets this harvest season to boost reserves amid high global food prices and export curbs by other rice-producing nations but many mills weren't complying with the law requiring them to sell rice to the government at a fixed price.

Rice is the basic staple for Bangladesh's 144 million people, but its price has almost doubled in the past 12 months due to shortages caused by floods last summer and a devastating cyclone in November.

Bangladesh has been ruled under a state of emergency since January 2007, when elections were canceled after months of violence over claims of vote-rigging.