Salt production may miss target
Saturday, 14 May 2011
Sonia H Moni
Salt production is set to miss the target this year as lower prices discouraged local cultivators and early rainfall marred output, but the officials ruled out any crisis in the market. The production of salt has reached only 900,000 tonnes until early May against the target of 1.39 million tonnes and might reach 1.0 million tonnes at the end of this season, according to Bangladesh Small and Cottage Industries Corporation (BSCIC). BSCIC chairman Fakhrul Islam told FE, "Though the salt production is not satisfactory due to lower price and early rainfall this year but there will be no crisis of salt thanks to last year's bumper production of 1.70 tonnes." "We had 571,000 tonnes of surplus salt after meeting the country's demand of 1.333 million metric tonnes last year. The surplus quantity of last year and this year's production will reach 1.5 million tonnes which will be enough to meet the domestic demand." Salt is mostly produced in Chittagong and Cox's Bazar and the production season continues from November to mid-May. The acting deputy general manager of Cox's Bazar salt development office of BSCIC, Md Ismail Hossain told the FE over telephone, "Around 38,982 farmers were involved in salt cultivation this year which was 43,553 last year." "Less salt farmers were involved in the cultivation since the last two years as they are not getting satisfactory price. The cost of production per kilogram of salt was Tk 2.15 last year whereas they got Tk1.50 in the field level."
Salt production is set to miss the target this year as lower prices discouraged local cultivators and early rainfall marred output, but the officials ruled out any crisis in the market. The production of salt has reached only 900,000 tonnes until early May against the target of 1.39 million tonnes and might reach 1.0 million tonnes at the end of this season, according to Bangladesh Small and Cottage Industries Corporation (BSCIC). BSCIC chairman Fakhrul Islam told FE, "Though the salt production is not satisfactory due to lower price and early rainfall this year but there will be no crisis of salt thanks to last year's bumper production of 1.70 tonnes." "We had 571,000 tonnes of surplus salt after meeting the country's demand of 1.333 million metric tonnes last year. The surplus quantity of last year and this year's production will reach 1.5 million tonnes which will be enough to meet the domestic demand." Salt is mostly produced in Chittagong and Cox's Bazar and the production season continues from November to mid-May. The acting deputy general manager of Cox's Bazar salt development office of BSCIC, Md Ismail Hossain told the FE over telephone, "Around 38,982 farmers were involved in salt cultivation this year which was 43,553 last year." "Less salt farmers were involved in the cultivation since the last two years as they are not getting satisfactory price. The cost of production per kilogram of salt was Tk 2.15 last year whereas they got Tk1.50 in the field level."