Home ›› 20 Oct 2022 ›› Front
Sugar prices have soared across the country due to a sudden supply shortage, forcing many retailers to stop selling the daily essential.
Despite the government fixing the fair price at Tk 90 per kg, the commodity is being sold for Tk 100 in the capital’s kitchen markets.
Wholesale traders are blaming sugar mills for the crisis, alleging that the supply of sugar from the mills has almost stopped.
Visiting the capital’s Segunbagicha kitchen market on Tuesday, this correspondent found that both loose white (refined) sugar and unrefined sugar was selling for Tk 100 per kg, which was Tk 90 just two days ago.
According to Trading Corporation of Bangladesh’s (TCB) data on Tuesday, each kg of sugar was sold for Tk 92-100.
Retail traders said between Saturday and Tuesday, the price of 50-kg sack of sugar has gone up by as much as Tk 450.
On Tuesday, many retailers returned empty-handed from Old Dhaka’s Moulvibazar, the wholesale market for sugar in the capital. They were forced to buy sugar at higher prices from other places.
Segunbagicha kitchen market’s grocery trader Mostafizur Rahman said even last week, he bought sugar at Tk 85 per kg from Moulvibazar.
“On Tuesday, I went to Moulvibazar and found that most shops had run out of sugar. The rest of the shops were asking Tk 95 per kg for sugar.”
The trader said he decided not to buy sugar at such a high price and returned empty-handed. He finally bought the commodity at Tk 92 per kg from a local wholesale shop.
“The way things are going, I think the price will go up even further soon,” he said.
Earlier on October 7, the commerce ministry fixed the price of loose refined sugar at Tk 90 per kg and packaged sugar at Tk 95. According to TCB data, around this time last year, the price of loose sugar was Tk 80-82. Comparing to the same period of the last year, the sugar price has gone up by 19%.
In reply to a query over the supply crunch, Mohammad Ali Bhutto, senior vice-president of Bangladesh Edible Oil Wholesalers Association’s Moulvibazar unit, said that the sale of sugar in Moulvibazar has almost come to a halt as the traders in the capital are not getting any supply from mills.
“I bought sugar last about 15 days ago. After that I was unable to buy sugar because the mills were asking for unusually high prices,” he added.
Wholesalers claim that the sugar trade has become hostage to a handful of unscrupulous sugar mill owners. As the import duty of refined sugar is higher than that of crude (unrefined) sugar, traders cannot import refined sugar. As a result, they depend on local refiners. As some of the state-owned sugar mills have closed, the dependency has increased more.
The annual demand for sugar in the country is 20 lakh tonnes, the entirety of which has to be imported.
Earlier on August 10, Sugar Refiners Association Secretary General Golam Rahman sent a letter to the commerce secretary proposing an increase in the price of sugar.
In the letter, the organisation said sugar refineries opened LCs (letters of credit) with deferred payment facility, but they are being forced to pay additional money while settling the LCs due the increase in dollar prices. As a result, they are incurring huge losses.
“When the LCs were opened for the import of raw sugar, the dollar rate was Tk 83-85 per dollar. But now while settling those LCs, commercial banks are charging us Tk 115 per dollar. Hence, additional money is being spent on sugar imports,” read the letter.
At the time of issuing that letter, the price of loose sugar in the retail market was Tk 84-85 per kg. The price went up to Tk 90 within a few days afterwards.
