Home ›› 09 May 2022 ›› Front
The edible oil shortage has begun to ease gradually across the country, as supply of this kitchen ingredient has increased in wholesale markets since Sunday.
A number of wholesalers told The Business Post that it will take another a day or two for the supply of this commodity to normalise at the retail level.
Mohammad Ali Bhutto, the vice-president of Moulvibazar Edible Oil Traders Association, said, “As soon as banks opened on Sunday, refiners asked wholesalers to deposit money for buying edible oil.
“I had bought 10,000 litres of the commodity from CityGroup for Tk 177.25 per litre, and my stock sold out the same day. There is currently no shortage of edible oil in the wholesale markets of Moulvibazar. As the prices have gone up, all the companies are selling it.”
A salesman of wholesale shop Ma-Babar Doa in Dhaka’s Jatrabari said, “We have begun selling soybean oil to retailers from Sunday, and will start selling palm oil from Monday.”
Dealer Ziauddin from Shantinagar area said, “Bottled soybean oil distribution has been gradually normalising since Sunday. The supplier company told me that the volume of edible oil supply will increase further from Monday.”
An acute supply crunch of soybean oil in both wholesale and retail markets began in Bangladesh just a day before Eid-ul-Fitr. Last Thursday, the Bangladesh Vegetable Oil Refiners & Vanaspati Manufacturers Association raised the price of refined bottled soybean oil by Tk 38 per litre to Tk 198, price of the loose variety to Tk 180 per litre, and palm oil to Tk 172 per litre.
