Vegetable prices remain high despite supply

Vegetable prices remain high in the capital’s kitchen markets despite adequate supply, which is hitting low- and middle-income consumers hard.

Prices of essential vegetables, including eggplant, green chilli, brinjal, ladies finger, cauliflower, red amaranth, bottle gourd, tomato, okra, teasel gourd, snake gourd, and white radish, were high on Friday like the previous week.

Bean was sold at Tk 80-100 per kg, green chilli Tk 110-120 per kg, tomato Tk 140 per kg, brinjal and ladies finger Tk 70-80 per kg, pumpkin Tk 40 per kg, cauliflower Tk 50-60 per piece, cabbage Tk 40- 50 per piece, white radish Tk 30 per kg, bitter melon Tk 70-80 per kg, cucumber Tk 60 per kg, and lemon (four pieces) Tk 15-20.

Salam Hossain, a vegetable vendor at Mirpur-1 kitchen market, told The Business Post vegetable prices had been high in the last couple of weeks despite adequate supply.

“Prices may reduce when more winter vegetables will be available in the market,” he said.

Talking to The Business Post, most consumers expressed their dissatisfaction with commodity price hikes, especially vegetables.

“High vegetable prices are a big burden on middle-class people like us. The government recently raised fuel prices, which has affected commodity prices,” Kabir Hossain told The Business Post at Mirpur-1 kitchen market.

On the other hand, broiler chicken prices dropped a bit. It was sold at Tk 150-155 per kg compared to Tk 160-170 last week.

But sonalika chicken was sold at Tk 290-295 per kg, up from Tk 270-275 in the last few days.

In mid-September, sonalika chicken was sold at Tk 290-295 per kg, but the price climbed up to Tk 310-320 in mid-October.

Onion prices have remained stable. A kilogramme of the local variety was sold at Tk 60-65 while the Indian one cost Tk 50 in several kitchen markets.

On September 14, the government withdrew import duties on onion and reduced that on sugar by 10 per cent to stabilise the prices of the two essential commodities in the local market.

Also, on September 9, the government fixed new prices of packaged and non-packaged sugar for the first time.

The maximum retail price of per kg non-packaged sugar was set at Tk 74, which was Tk 80 in the market, and that of packaged sugar at Tk 75, which was Tk 85.