Prices of many essential goods on rise again
Courtesy New Age 18/5/09
Staff Correspondent
Except some items like rice and flour, prices of many essentials have increased significantly again during the past couple of months due to shortage in supply from the importers or domestic sources.
Importers claimed there has been a rise in prices of many commodities in the international market which reduced procurement, resulting in shortage in supply, thus pushed up prices of those commodities, said market observers.
Prices of pulses, edible oil, sugar, egg, potato and spices are among the commodities that showed an upward trend, New Age found while monitoring the city markets.
Among major pulses, the ordinary grade imported red lentil on Sunday sold between Tk 90 and Tk 94 per kilogram while they sold at Tk 80 to Tk 82 per kg a month ago. Husked moog dal was sold at Tk 100 per kg on Sunday against its price at Tk 80 a couple of months back.
Although moog dal is mostly sourced from local production but for red lentils
‘Price of lentils started increasing again in international market from early this year due to low production in countries like
Emdad Hossain Malek, chief of the market monitoring cell at the Consumer Association of Bangladesh, says many importers import lentils in advance and stock at large scale, so, he feels, ‘Raising the prices of lentils instantly responding to any uptrend in international market is unjustified.’
According to Emdad, sugar prices had also started to increase from mid-March when the market was informed that there was less production in the government-owned sugar mills this year.
Sugar sold at retail market at Tk 40 per kg on Sunday against Tk 32 even in mid-March.
The government-owned sugar mills produced some 74,000 tons of sugar against nearly 150,000 tones in the previous year.
Haji Abul Hashem, general secretary of the Bangladesh Sugar Merchants’ Association, however said the local private sector refiners of imported raw-sugar, mainly feed the 10-lakh-ton market here.
‘Massive decline in sugar production in
Edible oil that in the previous two years had been in the news headlines due to its ever rising and exorbitant prices, started to decline from October onwards in 2008. The price of Soya Bean oil, after rising at Tk 130 a litre came down to Tk 70 by early April, but it is now selling between Tk 85 and Tk 87 per litre.
‘If we recall our previous experience, there is no reason to believe that edible oil millers are playing fairly in market and so the government should strictly monitor them,’ Shafiul Alam, a shopper at Nakhalpara bazaar, said on Sunday.
The commerce ministry has already held at least two meetings with the edible oil millers and sellers in the last couple of months, but at the retail level oil prices continued to increase.
Spices, especially garlic and ginger, which were selling at comparatively lower prices earlier, also started selling at higher prices in the last couple of weeks. Market sources attributed such rise to a reduced supply from importers.
Garlic was being retailed between Tk 32 and Tk 72 per kilogram on Sunday against the price of Tk 26 and Tk 60 a month ago. Ginger sold between Tk 45 and Tk 75 against Tk 36 and Tk 62 a few weeks back.
Eggs and potatoes are the products for which the local market depends totally on local production, but their prices have also increased sharply.
Potato sold between Tk 22 and Tk 24 per kilogram on Sunday against Tk 14 and Tk 16 just two months back. Eggs sold at Tk 90 per dozen against Tk 80 a month back and Tk 60 a year ago.
‘Small stocks of potato at cold storages due to a bad production this year are mainly pushing up potato prices,’ said a senior official at the Bangladesh Cold Storage Association.
Mohiuddin Ahmed, general secretary of the Bangladesh Egg Producers’ Association, argued that high price of one-day-old-chics and increased price of feed ingredients are causing a rise in price of eggs.
Mohiuddin said with Ranikhet disease, spread due to high temperature in March and April, killed thousands of hens in many farms and declining production has raised eggs prices.
Mohiudddin observed that by keeping prices of chicken and feed ingredients irrationally high, a section of breeders and feed suppliers were responsible for raising the cost of egg productions.
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