The World Bank will provide a credit facility worth $210 million to Bangladesh to help build modern food storage systems and strengthen distribution.
Under a deal signed between the two parties yesterday, the government will construct the food storage system that will be able of feed 10 million people under a new project.
The facility will be provided for a term of 40 years, including a 10-year grace period, and carries a service charge of 0.75 percent.
The Modern Food Storage Facilities Project will construct steel silos with a total storage capacity of 535,500 tonnes of rice.
It will also support the distribution of smaller household silos to 500,000 households in the disaster-prone coastal areas.
“Bangladesh faces floods and cyclones in almost every three years, and climate change could increase the frequency and intensity of these extreme-weather events,” said Christine Kimes, acting country head of World Bank Bangladesh.

“This modern food storage system combined with an effective distribution system will help ensure food security immediately after a natural disaster.”
“The project will reduce the vulnerability of people living in natural disaster-prone areas and help Bangladesh build a stock of food to meet emergencies,” Kimes said.
The modern steel silos will be able to store food grains for up to three years while retaining the nutritional quality of the rice through computerised control of humidity and temperature, World Bank said in a statement yesterday.
“The steel rice and wheat silos would enhance shelf life from seven months to three years. This would protect the government from having to replenish rice and wheat stocks in every seven months with huge costs,” said Arastoo Khan, additional secretary of the Economic Relations Division.
“So the government would have greater manoeuvrability in management and distribution of cereal stock.”
The project will also support the improvement and modernisation of the monitoring and management system of food stocks in Bangladesh, as well as the development of a food policy research programme and provide project management support, supervision and technical assistance and training.