Minister for enough $ supply to facilitate Ramadan imports

The commerce ministry will write to the Bangladesh Bank seeking its intervention in ensuring adequate supply of USD ahead of the month of Ramadan, so that businesses can import essential commodities smoothly to tackle elevated demands.

Commerce Minister Tipu Munshi made the promise in response to the business community’s demand of a USD quota at the import level.

He was briefing journalists at the secretariat after the 5th meeting of the task force on reviewing commodity prices and market conditions yesterday.

Minister Tipu said banks have become somewhat conservative in opening LCs for imports due to an overall shortage of dollars in the country.

However, in response to the proposal of a special dollar quota from traders, he said, “We will send a letter to Bangladesh Bank in this regard.”

Preparing for the Ramadan crunch

Meanwhile, the government is planning a number of initiatives to keep commodity prices in check during Ramadan.

Commerce Minister Tipu said, “The first thing is to fix prices. Secondly, monitoring whether a product is available in the market at the fixed price and if anyone is stockpiling goods in hopes of making extravagant profits.”

He informed journalists that sufficient goods have been stocked to meet the country’s demands in Ramadan.

“There is no reason to be concerned,” he said.

The minister continued, “There is a small problem with the slow LC-opening of LC. We want to help with that. But the situation is not alarming. “If a businessman informs us, we will recommend banks to open his LC. Imports of daily essentials will be prioritised.”

Also speaking on the issue, Senior Commerce Secretary Tapan Kanti Ghosh said, “Recommendation will be made to open LCs. Apart from that, we can also give permission to import essentials without LCs in cases where LCs are not required.

However, history indicates that such assurances have little value as the country usually witnesses a commodity hike in every Ramadan.

Responding to a question whether this year will see a repetition of such a situation, the minister said people start stocking up goods from a week before Ramadan. If they avoid doing this, there should not be a problem. He called on consumers to refrain from stocking up essentials to avoid a supply crunch.

Letter to NBR for reducing sugar import duty

Tipu Munshi said the government will write a letter to the National Board of Revenue to reduce the import duty on sugar ahead of Ramadan.

“Sugar price in Bangladesh is currently a bit higher compared to other countries. We have discussed the issue and are thinking of writing a letter to reconsider the duty on sugar import ahead of Ramadan,” said the minister.

He also said prices of onion and chickpea are stable at the moment. The commodities did not see price hike in the international market as well. The situation is similar for soybean and palm oil prices.

There is not much possibility of price hikes in the near future if this trend continues, he added.

However, the minister warned that any further depreciation of taka against the dollar may unstable the market. But so far, the local currency is standing its ground against the greenback.