Twin threat to UK curry industry

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The cost of rice, one of the staple ingredients, is soaring on world markets.

And restrictions on immigrants from Bangladesh is causing an acute labour shortage.

Alex Waugh, director of the Rice Association, said prices were up 60% year on year and the price of basmati rice, one of the most popular varieties in the UK, had almost doubled.

Big producers like India and China had restricted their exports, along with Vietnam and Egypt, and there were now "rapidly declining stocks" in the world.

This will feed into the price British consumers pay for rice at shops and in restaurants.

The shortage of workers in curry house kitchens has been caused by a new points-based system for lower skilled workers introduced by the Border and Immigration Agency.

At a meeting in London on Monday night, Keith Best, chief executive of the Immigration Advisory Service, discussed ways in which the curry industry can put the case to the Government that it is in serious trouble because of the restrictions.

Mr Best said the Government had mistakenly assumed that vacancies in the curry industry would be filled by Eastern Europeans.

But he said they have "no cultural sensitivity towards or understanding of the curry industry".