Breaking essentials market monopoly

In the backdrop of the recent instability and abnormal price hike of the daily essentials, the government is trying to control the market with administrative and legal measures. These steps and measures may bring short term results but they can never be a permanent solution. If we do some research, we will be able to find out that imports and processing of the essentials are carried out by a limited number of firms. And this provides a scope for manipulation in the domestic market. The manipulators are the oligarchs and their domination on the market is oligopoly. It is a market structure in which a market or industry is dominated by a small number of large sellers or producers.

Products like rice, flour, eggs are not specialised products. And it is expected that there should be a huge number of suppliers for these products in the market so that the supply side may not be confined to only a few big players. But apparently the big suppliers over time has taken over the small suppliers gradually and established their control in the market. And now they are simply manipulating the supply and hiking the price at their will. This is why the supply side monopoly and oligopoly should have to be broken. We have to encourage and protect the small players. Without market reforms, whatever actions we take in the name of mobile courts and fines will not bring any sustainable result for us.

Munir Hasan,

Gulshan-02, Dhaka,

md.munir.hasan@gmail.com