Bangladesh Commerce Minister Tipu Munshi has asked the Indian government to lift ban on onion export to neighbouring country. Munshi, who was in Guwahati on Tuesday to attend the India-Bangladesh stakeholders' meeting, said: “I have spoken to India’s Union Minister of Commerce and Industry, Piyush Goyal, recently and he has assured that the export ban will be lifted after Maharashtra elections are over”.
He said Bangladesh is heavily dependent on India for onion and is now importing from Turkey, Myanmar and Egypt to meet the requirement of onion in the country. “We are short of 600,000 tonnes of onion annually and India provides 80 percent of this shortage. Presently we are cooking food without onions.”
Munshi said that India stopped exports of onions one and half month back without prior information and this has caused difficulties in Bangladesh. India banned the export of onions after excessive rainfall damaged the crop in September this year.
