Bangladesh Imports U.S. Corn Following USGC Boots-On-The-Ground Efforts

The U.S. Grains Council (USGC) invested approximately $150,000 of Market Access Program (MAP) funds in programming and educational activities for the Bangladesh market in over a two-year period starting in 2014. As a result of these efforts, buyers in Bangladesh purchased $17 million worth of U.S. corn, for a return on investment (ROI) of $113 for every $1 of MAP funds invested.

The Council has been very active and engaged in Bangladesh for the past two years, including bringing a strong contingent of Bangladeshi corn and distiller’s dried grains with solubles (DDGS) buyers to the Council’s Export Exchange conference in October 2014. This commitment and investment into the country laid the groundwork for USGC staff to meet with important grain buyers when a window of opportunity opened in early 2015.

In April, USGC staff from South Asia traveled to India, Bangladesh’s main corn supplier, to meet with local end-users and traders. Learning that corn exports from India were hard to come by and uncompetitive in the global market, they planned follow-up visits in Bangladesh in August to share information with Bangladeshi buyers about how alternative sources of corn would be more economical. This team included consultant technical experts and USGC India Consultant Amit Sachdev.

Within a week of the USGC visits, there were informal reports of U.S. corn purchases by buyers in the country and official U.S. corn purchases showed up on export documents shortly thereafter.

While Bangladesh still has barriers to trade in place including a difficult-to-navigate policy toward genetically modified crops, the Council has laid the groundwork for further collaboration and development of this promising market.