Jt monitoring of essentials' imports soon to identify causes of short supply

FE Team | Published: July 18, 2007 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

Siddique Islam
As part of the ongoing efforts to rein in the soaring prices of essentials, two government agencies and the central bank will jointly monitor online the opening of import LCs (letters of credit) and their settlement.
New software is being developed to facilitate collection of information from banks on LCs and actual import position by three agencies - the Bangladesh Bank (BB), the National Board of Revenue (NBR) and Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) - for taking necessary measures.
The authorities concerned have taken the initiative in line with a recent government decision on proper enforcement of rules and regulations concerning LCs and imports, official sources said.
A six-member high-powered committee comprising high officials of the BB, the NBR and the BDR has been formed for taking necessary measures to implement such decision, the sources added.
"We will collect basic data on LCs and actual imports instantly from the commercial banks though the software in question to ensure proper monitoring on the overall import situation," a senior official, who is close to the committee, told the FE Tuesday.
He also said the new monitoring system will help curb discrepancies in LCs and actual imports that are thought to be mainly responsible for short supply of imported essentials in the market.
Sources, however, said one of the main objectives of the new monitoring system will be pin-pointing the importers, who are trying to influence the market by suppressing information about actual position of their imported products.
"The system will help the authorities concerned to know the discrepancies automatically and they will be able to take immediate steps," the official added.
A technical team starts its work on the developing such software from today (Wednesday) and the software will be ready within next 15 days.
"We will send the software to all commercial banks after completing trial operation," he noted.
The authorities concerned have already decided to collect such information about some essential items including rice, wheat, sugar, milk food, edible oil, pulses and onion initially.
"We have planned to bring all imported commodities gradually under such system to ensure proper monitoring on the overall import," the official said.
Meanwhile, the opening of LCs of some essential items including rice, wheat, sugar, edible oil, milk food and onion recorded a rise during the first 12 days of the current month compared to that of the corresponding period of the previous year.
According to the central bank statistics, the opening of LCs for rice increased, in terms of value, by $7.62 million, for wheat by $8.46 million, for sugar by 0.59 million, for milk food by $1.42 million, for onion by $0.32 million while edible oil by $22.17 million.
On the other hand, the opening of LCs for pulses declined by $6.88 million during the period, the data showed.
Earlier, the central bank directed the commercial banks to promote businesses, particularly small and medium ones, for opening fresh LCs against imports to ensure sufficient supply of commodities in the markets.
The BB also asked the banks to be flexible while opening fresh LCs for import of essential commodities.