Finer rice varieties remain stubbornly high

Prices of fine quality rice and green vegetables remained high on Thursday in the city's kitchen markets despite sufficient supply.
However, the prices of different varieties of fish remained unchanged as in the past week.
Rice of fine quality increased 25.49 per cent while nazirshail or minicate depending on quality rose between 32.98 per cent and 27.88 per cent, medium category 31.76 per cent, paijam/ lata depending on quality between 34.15 per cent and 31.03 per cent and coarse 27.03 per cent over the last one year, according to Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB) data.
The prices of finer varieties of rice continued to maintain their recent-peak levels on Thursday, but the coarse varieties showed a downtrend due to the recent cut in import duties and the government's import initiatives.
Sarna, a coarse variety of rice, was selling at Tk 48 per kg at different retail markets in the city, which was between Tk 52 and Tk 55 in the last few days.
BR-28, another variety of rice, was selling between Tk 57 and Tk 58 a kg depending on quality while 'minicate' between Tk 60 and Tk 62, and Nazirshail between Tk 68 and Tk 70.
At the wholesale markets in the city, the Minicate rice was selling between Tk 58 and Tk 60 a kg while Nazirshail between Tk 65 and Tk 66 and BR-28 between Tk 51 and Tk 52.
A section of unscrupulous traders allegedly increased the prices of rice recently, taking the advantage of an estimated crop damage of around 2.0 million tonnes due to the recent floods in the country.
The government has reduced import duties of rice to 2.0 per cent from around 28 per cent to encourage imports.
Retailers at the city's different kitchen markets said the prices of the coarse varieties of rice had declined by between Tk 5.0 and Tk 7.0 a kg over the last few days.
They, however, said that there is hardly any possibility of seeing an immediate fall in the prices of fine varieties of rice.
Consumers at different kitchen markets expressed frustration over the high prices of rice and urged the government to build up stock of rice at the public silos so that unscrupulous traders could not manipulate the price.
Papaya was sold between Tk 15 and Tk 20 a kg, while carrot at Tk 60, long bean between Tk 55 and Tk 60, brinjal from Tk 55 to Tk 65, radish between Tk 55 and Tk 60, tomato from Tk 110 to Tk 120, potato between 20 and Tk 25 and green chilli between Tk 110 and Tk 120.
A kg of beef was sold at Tk 500 while mutton between Tk 700 and Tk 750.
A kg of tilapia fish was sold between Tk 140 and Tk 150, ruhi from Tk 170 and Tk 180.
Four pieces of Hilsha fish was sold between Tk 900 and Tk 1,000.
A five litre pet bottle soybean oil of different bands was sold between Tk 510 and Tk 530. A kg of lentil was sold between Tk 85 and Tk 110, while sugar was between Tk 55 and Tk 60, onion depending on quality from Tk 25 to Tk 30, and garlic from Tk 100 to Tk 110.

[email protected]