FE Report
Onion prices have continued to surge in the city market, adding to woes of commoners further.
Onion was selling at Tk 85 a kilogramme (kg) on Saturday while ginger prices also witnessed a Tk 30 hike per kg.
Local onion was sold at Tk 84-Tk 85 a kg while Indian imported variety at Tk 62-Tk 65 a kg till Saturday noon- up by Tk 4.0-Tk 5.0 just in a day.
The spice showed a Tk 10-Tk 15 hike per kg in last two days, according to trading sources.
State-run Trading Corporation of Bangladesh data showed that spice prices increased by 25-30 per cent in last two weeks.
Traders attributed rising import costs and declining stocks of local onion to price hike while experts held the market syndication responsible for such a hike.
Sanjit Majumder, a grocer at Jafrabad in city's Rayer Bazar, said the spice price was rising every hour at wholesales for last few days.
"I bought local onion at Tk 62 a kg on Thursday morning, but its price increased to Tk 68 at Rayer Bazar wholesale on Friday evening and it reached Tk 75-Tk 76 today (Saturday)," he said.
He said imported Indian onion was traded at Tk 60 a kg on Saturday and its price is likely to go up further.
Narayan Chandra Saha, a Shyambazar-based importer in the city, said the price of Indian onion has been increasing for last one month.
Rain and flooding hampered onion farming in India this year, he said, adding that import cost surged to $ 550 a tonne last week which was below $ 300 in September.
Onion is now selling at Rs 42-45 (Tk 53-Tk 57) a kg even in India, he said.
When asked, he said supply of local onion has been squeezed by big traders in Faridpur, Pabna, Jhenaidah and Kushtia.
Many traders there have been hoarding onion to make more profits, creating its shortage, he said.
But district level traders said they have no stock except some products for daily trading.
Ashraf Ali, a spice trader at Khankhanapur in Rajbari district, told the FE that a major portion of local onions was sold to traders in Dhaka, Narayanganj and Chittagong in the March-June period.
Consumers Association of Bangladesh (CAB) Secretary Humayun Kabir Bhuiyan said onion traders in Dhaka raised the prices of the tuber spice hurriedly compared to that of surge in India.
He said prices of onion gradually rose to Tk 27 a kg in India in the third week of October, but Bangladeshi importers pushed up its price to Tk 55 a kg here. The import cost of onion was highest Tk 18 a kg which was brought in September last.
"The government monitoring teams are totally inactive who have been encouraging traders to utilise every occasion to make windfall profits, causing immense sufferings to limited income consumers," he claimed.
However, the data of the commerce ministry and Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics revealed that there was a stock of nearly 2.8 million tonnes of onion (local production 18.7 m tonnes + import 0.9 m tonnes) in the country this year against the highest demand for 2.2 million tonnes.
On the other hand, prices of ginger also increased by Tk 30 a kg during the last two days as both imported and local varieties were sold at Tk 140-Tk 160 a kg on Saturday depending on their quality.
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