Home ›› 03 Mar 2023 ›› Front
Even a week after import duty exemption to increase the supply of sugar and reduce its prices, it has put no impact in the market. Neither the sugar supply has increased nor its prices declined in the capital’s kitchen markets.
Retailers said sugar supply will not increase and prices will not come down unless prices drop in the wholesale markets.
On the other hand, although the prices of farm eggs have decreased slightly in the retail markets, the prices of chickens have shot up while the prices of fish, beef and other essentials, including edible oil, pulses and rice, have remained unchanged at previous high.
Visiting some kitchen markets, including Segunbagicha, Mugda, Manik Nagar and Mohammadpur Kirshi market on Thursday, it was seen that many shops had no sugar. But those who have are selling sugar at higher rates.
White loose sugar was being sold at Tk120 per kg while brown loose sugar at Tk140 per kg same as before.
Mustafa Rahman, a retailer at Segunbagicha kitchen market said, “We are still unable to buy sugar at lower price from the wholesale market. So, many retailers have stopped selling sugar as before due to higher prices.”
However, a good number of retailers have stopped selling sugar in the hope that the prices of sugar will drop in the wholesale market very soon. They are observing the market situation. They also expressed the hope that sugar crisis will be over soon.
The National Board of Revenue (NBR) on February 26 withdrew import duty on both raw and refined sugar in order to enable the consumers to get the sweetener at reduced rates. In a notification, the customs authority withdrew Tk 3,000 duty on import of raw sugar and Tk 6,000 on refined sugar per tonne with immediate effect.
At the same time, the NBR also reduced regulatory duty on import of sugar to 25 per cent from 30 per cent, according to the notification.
The reduced import benefit, which comes following a proposal from the commerce ministry to bring down the prices of sugar from its current record high of up to Tk 120 per kilogram, will remain effective until May 30 this year.
After the reduction, the overall import cost of raw and refined sugar is expected to decline by Tk 6,500 and Tk 9,000 per tonne (Tk6.5 and Tk9 per kg) respectively, according to an estimate by the NBR.
However, even after a week of duty reduction, mill owners have not announced any reduction in the sugar prices yet.
The refiners raised the prices of sugar by Tk 5 per kg from February 1. As per the new rates, the reasonable price of loose sugar is Tk 107 per kg and packaged sugar is Tk 112 per kg. But sugar is selling at higher than fixed-rate.
Earlier, the government fixed the prices of loose and packaged sugar at Tk 102 and Tk 108 per kg respectively.
However, the price of egg came down by Tk10-15 per dozen this week. The farm chicken egg sold at Tk130-135 per dozen, down from Tk145-150 per dozen one week ago. However, the price of farm chicken including Broiler breed increased by Tk 10 per kg to Tk240-250 per kg this week.
Consumers, particularly low-income ones are suffering a lot with the hike in chili price. It has increased to Tk 160-170 within a couple of week. However, the prices of other vegetables and spices, including eggplant, radish, potato, onion, garlic and ginger, remained stable this week.
