The Indian foreign ministry is “repentant” for not informing Bangladesh in advance while imposing a ban on onion export, Foreign Minister Dr. AK Abdul Momen says.
“I heard that the Indian Ministry of External Affairs is very repentant...because they didn't know about the sudden ban,” he told reporters on Thursday at his office after his return from Turkey.
He said he had also instructed the Bangladesh ambassador in Turkey to talk with the exporters there to import onions from Ankara.
“We imported onion from Turkey earlier … so after getting the news (Indian ban), as per my consultation with our commerce minister, I instructed our ambassador to Turkey to contact the Turkish exporters for importing onions,” he said.
The foreign minister, however, said they were expecting that India would lift the export ban following the request of Bangladesh.
The foreign ministry, earlier, wrote to the Indian authority to withdraw the ban reminding them about the previous unwritten discussions that took place in October last year and January this year.
The latest ‘abrupt announcement’ of the government of India ‘undermines’ those discussions between the two friendly countries on the matter and the understanding shared, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs wrote to Indian High Commission in Dhaka on September 15.
In October, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina visited India and in January, the Commerce Secretary-level meeting between the countries took place.
During her visit, the prime minister said: “I wish you had informed us before suddenly putting a halt in export of onions. I had to tell my cook I have no other option but to have my food without onions. I would request India to please inform us beforehand while taking such an action. After all, we are neighbours”.
On Monday, the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) of India issued a notification imposing restrictions on onion export with immediate effect that impacted the onion markets in Bangladesh.
On Wednesday, Commerce minister Tipu Munshi informed that Bangladesh’s monthly demand of onion is around 2 lakh tons and the current stock of onion in the country is around 6 lakh tons.
There is a deficit of four lakh tons compared to the demand up to January next and 12 to 13 hundred tons of onions have been loaded from Myanmar, which will come in a few days, he said.
The foreign ministry also said they had taken steps to import onion from Egypt.