The government has drafted two roadmaps to boost the country’s annual export volume of agricultural goods to two billion US dollars within the next two fiscal years.

A views-exchange meeting over the draft roadmaps was held at Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council (BARC) auditorium in the city. 

Agriculture Minister Dr Muhammad Abdur Razzaque was present at the event as the chief guest.

A committee, formed by the Ministry of Agriculture in June last, prepared the two draft roadmaps -- one to boost the export of vegetables and fruits and another to raise the potato export.

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The draft roadmaps identified some major barriers and placed a number of recommendations over boosting the export of vegetables, potato, fruits and processed agricultural goods.

If the recommendations can be implemented, it would be possible to raise the export earnings from agricultural goods to US$ 1.634 billion in the current fiscal year (2021-22) and US$ 2 billion in the 2022-23 fiscal year, according to one of the roadmaps.

Another roadmap states that it would be possible to export 80,000 tonnes of potato in 2022, 120,000 tonnes in 2023, 180,000 tonnes in 2024 and 250,000 tonnes in 2025.

Addressing the function, Dr Razzaque said there is a huge potential of exporting vegetables, potato and fruits as Bangladesh has surplus production of different crops.

“We want to export these surplus crops to all over the world.  So, the government has been working relentlessly to remove all the export barriers,” he said.

Dr Razzaque, also a presidium member of ruling Awami League, expressed the hope that the agricultural export would go up further in the days to come.

Presided over by Agricultural senior secretary Md Mesbahul Islam, the function was addressed, among others, by Director General of Department of Agricultural Marketing (DAM) Mohammed Yousuf and BARC executive chairman Dr Sheikh Mohammad Bakhtiar, Director General of the Department of Agricultural Extension Md Asadullah and Chairman of Bangladesh Agricultural Development Corporation Dr Amitabh Sarker.

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DAM Deputy Director Dr Mohammad Razu Ahmed and Chief coordinator of BADC research cell Dr Md Rezaul Karim placed the two draft roadmaps at the event.