Bangladesh to import 100,000 tonnes diese

DHAKA: Bangladesh will import 100,000 tonnes of diesel from India so that farmers have fuel to irrigate lands during the current boro rice season, a senior official said on Tuesday.

"We have adequate stocks of diesel, but still to avoid any unseen situation plan to import further from our neighbouring country," said Anwarul Karim, chairman of the state-run Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC).

Nearly 840,000 tonnes of diesel would be needed for irrigating 4.5 million hectares of land during this crop season, officials said.

The agriculture ministry of the army-backed intering government is ramping up production of main staple rice after floods and a cyclone of last year left it with a shortfall of up to 2 million tonnes.

"We will buy diesel from the Indian Oil Corporation Limited to beef up our stocks and negotiations on fixing the premium are about to enter a final stage," Karim told Reuters. He said that the government was trying to increase production of boro, a rice variety, by 21 percent to 17.5 million tonnes this year.

Last month the energy ministry approved a proposal to import 120,000 tonnes of diesel from India by the BPC, the sole importer and distributor of oil, officials said

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