Ensure competition for rationalisation of prices
Monday, 19 November 2007
Amirul Islam
BUSINESS, conducted ethically, cannot cause consumers' sufferings. Businesses ought to be guided not by the lust for abnormal profits, but legitimate ones. Otherwise, hoarding, black-marketing and profiteering would not be seen as unlawful activities. Unfortunately, ethical business practice, absent across the country, is also contributing to price escalation of the products in every day use. Syndicates are, thus allegedly, artificially inflating prices of essential goods consumed by common people.
Some institutional business forums in their explanation, however, linked the higher prices of consumer products to rising prices in international markets. But this explanation sounds not tenable in the backdrop of the recent price increases when the prices of most of these consumption goods were on the low side in the international market. Even at the higher import prices, prices of goods in the internal market should proportionately reflect domestic duty deductions on them. When this is not seen, comes the question of price manipulation for undue profits, a penal offence. The government needs to take action against such unethical practices as in the case of adulteration. Such government action to normalise prices will be well received by the people as they welcomed the crackdown against the food adulterers.
Government cannot sit on the fence showing helplessness on the plea that it's a market economy. In a market economy certain principles based on the interactions of market forces determine prices which also benefit the consumers. But hoarding, black marketing and profiteering, having no place in a market economy, need be treated as offences calling for firm legal action without discrimination. Market economy principles do not approve government inaction in using regulatory mechanism to correct market manipulation. The interests of the economy and the people, unfairly exploited, need protection.
Penal action against syndicate operators, hoarders and profiteers would always be justified. There is a pressing need for the government to create an environment conducive to stepping up competition for the supply of essential goods to regulate abnormal price movement. In the past, the government relied on its Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB) to import essential goods and sold them at fair prices among consumers to create pressure on the private sellers to scale down prices. The TCB has gone into hibernation over the years as the reliance on market economy grew. Some mechanism now needs to be devised to support the growth of a healthy and competitive market.
BUSINESS, conducted ethically, cannot cause consumers' sufferings. Businesses ought to be guided not by the lust for abnormal profits, but legitimate ones. Otherwise, hoarding, black-marketing and profiteering would not be seen as unlawful activities. Unfortunately, ethical business practice, absent across the country, is also contributing to price escalation of the products in every day use. Syndicates are, thus allegedly, artificially inflating prices of essential goods consumed by common people.
Some institutional business forums in their explanation, however, linked the higher prices of consumer products to rising prices in international markets. But this explanation sounds not tenable in the backdrop of the recent price increases when the prices of most of these consumption goods were on the low side in the international market. Even at the higher import prices, prices of goods in the internal market should proportionately reflect domestic duty deductions on them. When this is not seen, comes the question of price manipulation for undue profits, a penal offence. The government needs to take action against such unethical practices as in the case of adulteration. Such government action to normalise prices will be well received by the people as they welcomed the crackdown against the food adulterers.
Government cannot sit on the fence showing helplessness on the plea that it's a market economy. In a market economy certain principles based on the interactions of market forces determine prices which also benefit the consumers. But hoarding, black marketing and profiteering, having no place in a market economy, need be treated as offences calling for firm legal action without discrimination. Market economy principles do not approve government inaction in using regulatory mechanism to correct market manipulation. The interests of the economy and the people, unfairly exploited, need protection.
Penal action against syndicate operators, hoarders and profiteers would always be justified. There is a pressing need for the government to create an environment conducive to stepping up competition for the supply of essential goods to regulate abnormal price movement. In the past, the government relied on its Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB) to import essential goods and sold them at fair prices among consumers to create pressure on the private sellers to scale down prices. The TCB has gone into hibernation over the years as the reliance on market economy grew. Some mechanism now needs to be devised to support the growth of a healthy and competitive market.