Soaring onion prices bring tears to commoners

FE Report
Onion prices remained volatile last week as the prices witnessed massive changes over seven days which traders and market experts attributed to Indian government's raising minimum export price.
Prices of some vegetable items further increased significantly on Friday mainly due to flood across the country's crop hubs, traders said.  
However, despite the government having increased import duty of sugar by 20 per cent, its prices were static until Friday in the key kitchen markets.
The price of local variety of onion increased to Tk 85-90 per kg between Monday and Wednesday from Tk 60-62 per kg earlier. It was sold at Tk 75-80 per kg on Friday - a decrease of Tk 10.
Imported onion  sold at Tk 65-70 per kg on Friday which was Tk 80-85 per kg between Tuesday and Wednesday but it was Tk 50-55 per kg seven days back, according to the Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB) data.
Narayan Chandra Saha, a leading spice importer, told the FE that the prices of onion started declining in the wholesale market.
He said onion of local variety sold at Tk 68-70 per kg and imported variety traded at Tk 60-62 per kg at Shyambazar on Thursday evening.
He said big quantities of Indian, Burmese and Pakistani onion have also been entering the market which will force a number of traders to release their items.
"The price will further decline significantly in a few days," he said.
However, the Indian government increased the minimum export price of onion on August 23 to US$ 700 per tonne from $ 425 earlier to increase the availability of onions in its domestic market, the Economic Times reported.
Consumers Association of Bangladesh (CAB) secretary Advocate Humayun Kabir Bhuiyan told the FE that it takes at least three weeks from the opening of L/C for Indian onion to come in Bangladesh but it takes only a day to make an impact of Indian decision on Bangladeshi onion market.
"Is it a normal market trend or something distorted?" he questioned.  
Agricultural economist Golam Hafiz Kennedy said that the country produced 1.9 million tonnes of onion in the last fiscal year (FY'15) against its demand for 2.2 million tonnes.
"There is no reason for increase in local onion price by such a large scale before ensuing November," he said.  
He said importers and their allied traders are dominating the markets which should be tackled by the government.
However, prices of vegetables including okra, bitter gourd, pointed gourd, leafy vegetables further increased by Tk 5-50 per kg/per bunch.
Okra  sold at Tk 100-120 per kg on Friday which is an all-time high in the country, according to the data available at the Department of Agricultural Marketing (DAM).
Price of the vegetable (okra) increased by Tk 45-50 per kg in last seven days.
Meanwhile, prices of green chilli declined slightly on Friday but sold at Tk 180-200 per kg which was Tk 200-220 per kg a week back.
Prices of sugar remained static at retail market and sold at Tk 38-40 per kg on Friday.
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