Cooking, cleaning costs to go up for consumers

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Sarwar Zahan
Cooking and cleaning are to become more expensive in coming days because of global shortages of raw materials for cooking oil, margarine and soap, importer and business sources said.
"Consumers are already burdened with escalating grocery bills, and might have to face another hurdle," a teacher in a city school, Hasina Momtaz, said.
Global palm oil prices had been raised by 50 per cent and that of soyabean and sunflower oil prices by 35 per cent in the past four months.
Importer sources said poor weather conditions had affected the Malaysian supply of palm raw materials, pushing up import prices to Bangladesh.
The by-product of palm oil is used in toilet and laundry soap, while baking fats and confectionery fats are used in breads. It has raised the demand for the product in the country, they said.
Sources said that internationally, cooking oils were under threat from the increasing demand for bio-fuels manufactured from the same raw materials. The local consumers could expect the higher prices for cooking oils, margarine and soap from the current month of July.
"The latest anticipated 15 to 20 per cent hike was in addition to the substantial price hikes experienced in the past six months", edible oil importer sources said.
They said that they believed speculators were pushing the oil seed price higher, the long-term effect of which would severely hamper the viability of the oil manufacturing market.
The oil industry and traders will be able to check the hike even if they do its best to hold the prices, despite the problems faced, edible oil refinery trade body sources said.
The prices of edible oil are currently static at around Tk 72 per litre due to informal controls. It is not the reflection of free market, retail and wholesale trader sources said.