Commodities, services boarding database for sound marketing

A comprehensive database of country's different services and commodities is being prepared to access their market status and clear supply chain of anti-competitive interventions, officials say.
The proposed database is likely to include information about all local services and locally produced items and imported essentials like onions, garlic, ginger, malta, apple and grapes.

Bangladesh Competition Commission (BCC) has initiated the process of preparing the digital catalogue-incidentally, at a time when market waywardness evident in price rises has been a prime concern all around.
Contacted, BCC chairman Md. Mofizul Islam said they are currently collecting the info country's 50/60 services and essential commodities. They will study after receiving all the data.
"We want to understand our market nature and structure with an eye to intervening oligopoly in the areas," he told the FE.
"Besides, we will be able to curb any possible unhealthy competition in the sectors if a comprehensive database is available in our hand," said the chairman of the statutory body that is entrusted with the task of ensuring competitive market prices by preventing monopoly with anti-trust actions.
Local annual production capacity (fiscal years 2019-20 and 2020-21, annual production volume, demand of the items, production and volume of items at district level will be registered.
Besides volume of imported commodities (fiscal years 2019-20 and 2012-21) and import cost, list of importers, supply-chain management of the items, their selling prices in the fiscal years 2019-20 and 2020-21) will be integrated.
The competition commission has recently sought to gather necessary info of local and imported commodities from the authorities concerned.
In the context of competition, there are some anti-competitive tools. Of the tools, generally, by nature, state aid is one kind of anti-competitive tools. It is prohibited. But aid has to be provided or declared during different recessions in greater interest of the country's economy, a senior commission official said.
"A letter sent by the state entity was received recently. We are working on the issue," a desk official of the commerce ministry said.
In 2012, the Competition Act was enacted in Bangladesh with a view to build up a sound marketing system and marketing operations so that prices cannot be jacked through manipulation.
The mission of the commission, specifically, is to prevent, control and eradicate collusion, monopoly, oligopoly, or abuse of dominant position or any other anti-competitive practices on the market as well as to prevent and control any combination which will have adverse effect on competition, according to the BCC that operates under the ministry of commerce.

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