Raw salt price fixed at Tk 4 per kg

FE Team | Published: April 14, 2011 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

FE Report
The government has fixed the maximum price of raw salt at Tk 4.0 per kg for millers in a bid to protect interests of the country's thousands of growers. Commerce minister Faruk Khan fixed the price cap at a meeting with salt millers and farmers at his ministry Wednesday. He asked the salt millers to purchase raw salt from local producers instead of importing it. Import of salt causes immense loss to the growers, he said. During the meeting the minister said some 45,000 local growers produced raw salt in the costal districts last season but most of them did not get due enough price from the millers. He said the government will also purchase 0.1 million tonne of salt from the producers each year and the salt makers will also be given training through the BSCIC for better production. "The salt growers will get special financing of maximum Tk 25,000 from the state-owned banks at the interest rate of 4.0 per cent," the minister said. President of Bangladesh Salt Farmers' Association Mustafa Kamal Chowdhury hailed the minister's move, saying that it will remove the worries of the local growers. But salt millers said the government took the decision without analyzing production costs of the producers and feared that the price of the item might increase at the retail level in coming days. "The rate fixed for per kilogram salt was too high as production cost of the growers is nearly Tk 0.90," Paritush Kanti Roy, president of Bangladesh Industrial Salt Manufacturers Association, said adding that they will sit with the minister again over the issue. Another manufacturer said they will purchase salt from farmers at Tk 4 a kg and demanded withdrawal of 86 per cent supplementary duty on import of industrial salt. Bangladesh produced more than 1.7 million tonnes of salt last year against the demand of 1.3 million tonnes.