Nepal bans rice and wheat export as food crisis looms

Nepal's ministry of supplies said the decision to banexports of rice, paddy and wheat was taken to maintain stocksafter India, the main supplier of rice to the Himalayancountry, banned export of the non-basmati variety.

Nepal, not a major producer of foodstuffs, mostly exportswheat flour to China and basmati rice to Bangladesh.

"The ban is to rein in price hikes and avoid any foodcrisis," Gyan Darshan Udhas, a supplies ministry official,said.

Nepal, which harvested some 4.3 million tonnes of rice in2007, saw the price of the staple go up by almost 30 per centin the past three months, primarily because of the risingprices in international markets, Nepal's central bank said.

India's ban on rice exports too had directly affected basicfoodstuff prices in Nepal.

The United Nations World Food Programme warns that about3.8 million people in Nepal would face food insecurity becauseof a sharp increase in food prices and political instability inthe country's southern plains, the country's industrial heartbordering India.

"There is no stock building by consumers yet, but thesituation can turn bad if prices keep rising," said PabitraBajracharya, chief of Nepal's retailers association.

(Reporting by Krittivas Mukherjee; Editing by AlistairScrutton)