No impact on edible oil prices in market

The government reduced the price of per litre bottled soybean oil by Tk 14 to stand at Tk 178 three days ago. However, the price has not yet been reflected in the market, and retailers are still selling soybean oil at Tk 192 per litre.

Consumers and retailers have expressed their displeasure at the fact that refiners start selling oil at a higher price readily after a hike, but drag their feet when it comes to complying with a price drop. Due to their reluctance, the reduced price does not come into effect even 4-5 days after the price cut announcement. This is a bad habit of traders which should be curbed, they said.

Apart from edible oil, prices of rice, pulses, poultry and other daily commodities remained unchanged from last week. While there wasn’t any significant hike in their prices, no notable drop was seen either.

Meanwhile, the Commerce Ministry on Thursday hiked the price of sugar by Tk 6 per kg nearly two weeks after the price of the commodity was reduced. With the revision, the price of loose and packaged sugar will be Tk 90 and Tk 95 per kg respectively. On the other hand, the price of palm oil has been reduced further by Tk 8 to Tk 125 per litre.

After visiting several of the capital’s kitchen markets such as Segunbagicha, Rampura, and Maniknagar and talking to the wholesale and retail traders, this correspondent learned that the newly reduced price of bottled soybean oil was supposed to come into effect from last Tuesday. However, the commodity was unavailable at the new price, disappointing consumers who expected to spend less on oil.

While bottled oil price remained steep, prices of loose soybeans and palm oil fell slightly in the capital’s kitchen markets. Traders were selling loose palm oil at Tk 120-122 per litre, which was Tk 125-128 last week. The price of loose soybean oil has decreased by Tk 2-5 per litre from last week and was being sold at Tk 160-170 on Thursday.

“Since the dealers or suppliers have not yet released oil at the new price, retailers are selling oil at the old price still,” Mostafizur Rahman, a trader in Segunbagicha kitchen market, told The Business Post.

He added that even if the retailers receive the supply of oil at the new price, they would first clear out the oil in their stock at the previous high price.

The government has recently attempted several interventions to reduce the price of rice, including the withdrawal of import duty, importing from India, punishing unscrupulous rice traders etc. In the end, all these measures have proven futile in decreasing the price of this commodity.

However, the measures did stabilise the volatile rice market to some extent. The price of rice has remained the same over the last week across the country, although traders have expressed uncertainty about the market becoming volatile again before the start of Aman season.