This time none other than the top global lender, the World Bank (WB), has made an allegation identical to one that is very often levelled against traders by the Bangladesh consumers.
The allegation is simple: Bangladeshi traders, who are slow in responding to decline in prices of commodities in the international market, are found to be quite fast in reacting to an opposite development.
But the consumers would find the period mentioned by the WB in its recent analysis with regard to hiking prices of commodities in response to global market trend rather unacceptable.
The Bank's analysis said it takes around two to four and a half months for the local traders to hike the prices of commodities if the same go up in the global market. The reaction time shown by the analysis in question appears to be too long. In fact, in some cases, local traders react to the price-rise almost instantly or take two to three weeks to do so. Information about international commodity market these days is gathered instantly, courtesy of internet.
While going for almost an instant hike, they hardly feel the necessity of explaining anything to the consumers or anyone else. The fact remains that not many people, even those who are legally mandated to protect the interests of the consumers, feel the necessity of asking any question or making the profit-hungry and unscrupulous traders accountable to the consumers.
The traders have also developed the habit of hiking prices of essential commodities even without any change in their price tags in the global market. Usually, such price-hike takes place during the holy month of Ramadan.
The government, in most cases, is found to be helpless in the face of whimsical rise in prices. The commerce ministry ahead of Ramadan holds meeting with the leaders of the chamber bodies and trade associations where it requests the traders not to hike the prices of essential items. The business leaders make promises but forget the same once out of the meeting venue. The consumers are usually made to pay through their noses during the month of Ramadan.
The local traders, however, are found slow in responding to the fall in prices of commodities in the international market on the plea that they would incur substantial loss if the domestic prices of goods in their stock are brought down to the international levels.
Moreover, the level of decline in prices, even if put into effect belatedly, does not match with that observed in the international market. The traders are not willing to pass on the full benefit of price fall to the consumers with a view to earning illogical profits on their part.
However, they tend to forget the same principle if the goods become costlier in the international market. They are then guided more by high profit motive than consumers' interests.
It is to be noted here that the anomalies involving the prices are detected not in the case of all essential commodities. The price developments are found to be abnormal when a small group of large private companies dominate the entire trading process of some commodities. This is particularly true in the case of a few items, namely, soyabean, sugar and wheat.
The price movements are found behaving rationally in the imported items where a large number of traders are involved. The recent onion price is a case in point. When neighbouring India had imposed restrictions on export of its onion some months back, the price of the commodity shot up instantly in the Bangladesh market. The price increase was about 70 to 80 per cent. But the prices of onion in Bangladesh, interestingly, were below that of India. Following import from Turkey, Myanmar and Pakistan by a large army of local traders, the onion prices have slightly come down.
As far as marketing of few essentials are concerned, a sort of oligopolistic situation prevails in Bangladesh. Since the import of commodities such as soyabean, sugar and wheat involves substantial funds, some big private firms dominate their marketing, starting from import down to marketing at the retail level.
These business groups are quite powerful and the government, apparently, try to avoid any confrontation with them. The commerce ministry does have a so-called price monitoring cell. But this particular name usually comes to the notice of the consumers during the holy month of Ramadan.
Besides, the government does make a ridiculous attempt to cool down prices of a few essentials using the services of a non-entity, named, the Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB). The cash-strapped TCB employs a few trucks on the streets in Dhaka and Chittagong for open sale of soyabean oil, sugar, pulses etc.
The government could do better to contain the inflation situation if it paid attention to the local price tags of a few imported essential items.
A section of businesses has become headstrong primarily because of the absence of official market monitoring and the lack of strong resistance from the consumers' rights organisations. In fact, except for the Consumers' Association of Bangladesh (CAB), there is no consumers' rights organisation worth its name. The performance of the CAB, too, has not been satisfactory. It is yet to make its presence felt by its deeds.
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