Steps taken to check prices of essentials in Ramadan

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Wednesday told parliament that the government has taken two measures to control the prices of essential commodities in the holy month of Ramadan.
Responding to a question from lawmaker Ali Azam during the question-answer session, the premier said that her government has already managed to reduce the prices of some essentials.
"But due to huge surge in the prices of some commodities like petroleum, fertiliser and wheat in the international market, the country is feeling the pressure of inflation," she opined.
Listing the measures taken by the government to curb the prices of essentials, she said the government has reduced the import duty on soybean oil by 10 per cent. Local production of edible oils was exempted from VAT, she mentioned.
The Prime Minister also said that the government also slashed the import duty on date import from 25 per cent to 15 per cent.
The import duty on sugar and rush sugar was also restructured, the Prime Minister said, adding that duty on rice import was totally withdrawn and regulatory duty was reduced to 5 per cent from 25 per cent.
She also said that to curb inflation, the government increased the repo rate from 4.75 per cent in May 2022 to 08 per cent.
Similarly, the rate of the reverse repo was increased to 6.5 per cent and the maximum limit of interest rate in lending was withdrawn, she said.
The Prime Minister said that due to these measures a positive impact on inflation, situation was already visible in the market.
She hoped that very soon the inflation could be kept under control.
The Prime Minister mentioned that the government introduced crawling peg in fixing the exchange rate of currency which, she said, would help curb inflation.
The Prime Minister also said that diplomatic efforts were also initiated to keep the prices of essentials under control and already measures have been taken to ensure import of 50,000 tonnes of onion from India. The premier said that to ensure availability of protein at reasonable prices in Ramadan, the Livestock Department was ordered to supply protein foods like beef, eggs, milk through mobile vans in 25 spots of Dhaka city.
She also pointed out that the authorities concerned were asked to step up efforts to monitor the markets on a regular basis to check an abnormal hike in the prices of daily essentials. She said that the commercial banks were directed to open LC for import of essential commodities at lowest possible margins to ensure smooth supply of essential commodities.

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