Dhaka, Nov 19 - The Bangladesh government has banned export of all varieties of rice until April when boro, a major rice variety, will be harvested, a senior official said on Wednesday.
"The government order to this effect has reached us today," said Omar Farukh, commodity director of state-run Export Promotion Bureau.
Farukh said the government imposed the export ban to keep market supply smooth until farmers harvested the boro and help cool down food prices.
Bangladesh exports aromatic and fine quality rice only but unscrupulous traders often sell other categories of the staple, including those most commonly consumed by the country's 140 million people.
Such unauthorised exports have caused a supply shortfall in the domestic market, pushing prices up, food officials said.
The country produced 17.6 million tonnes of "boro" rice by the middle of this year, 17 percent higher than the previous year, and it expects to harvest 13 million tonnes of "aman" rice in coming months, 34 percent more than in 2007, officials said.
Bangladesh earned nearly $10 million from the export of aromatic and other fine quality rice to the United States, Britain and Gulf countries in the fiscal year to June 2008, up 30 percent from the previous year, officials said.
Bangladesh spent more than $800 million to import rice to meet the local shortfall caused by natural disasters in the 2007-08 fiscal year.