Prices of onion and ginger witnessed significant hike in the city's kitchen markets in the last few days, adding to the sufferings of the consumers, especially the commoners who had already been hit hard by price hike of other essentials, including staple rice.
Ginger, one of the main cooking ingredients, became unexpectedly costlier only within a dew days.
Imported ginger prices shot up by 50-60 per kilogram (kg) in a week as was sold at Tk 220-240 a kg on Monday.
Prices of the local varieties too soared to Tk 180-200 a kg from Tk 140-160 a kg earlier.
Onion, another key cooking spice, also became dearer in the past week. Both imported and local varities witnessed Tk 5.0-Tk 10 per kg hike in the last seven days, sources said.
Local varities were sold at Tk 45-55 a kg on Monday which was Tk 40-45 a kg seven days back.
Imported Indian onions were retailed at Tk 35-40 a kg on the day from Tk 25-35 a kg earlier.
The state-owned Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB) recorded 12 per cent hike in onion prices in the week.
Haider Ali, a grocer at Sher-e-Bangla Road of Mohammadpur, said prices of both onion and ginger have been rising at wholesale level in the last one and half weeks.
Mr Ali said he bought ginger at Tk 200 a kg from Shyambazar wholesale market on Sunday morning which was Tk 160 a kg a week back.
He also said that prices of all kinds of onion surged by Tk 250-275 per 50-kg sack both at Shyambazar and Karwan Bazar.
Jamal Uddin Bhuiya, a Shyambazar-based trader, said onion prices started increasing in India which impacted Bangladesh's local market.
He said that minimum import cost of Indian onion is Tk 25 a kg which they are selling at Tk 26-27 a kg.
He attributed the rise in the cost of Indian onion to the uptrend in the local market.
He also said that import cost of ginger is much higher this year.
Asked about the trend in the prices of imported Chinese ginger, he said ginger and garlic prices shot up this year amid crop loss in top exporting countries like China and India.
He added that the import cost of Chinese ginger increased to $1,450- $1,600 a tonne from $1,300-$1,320 one month back.
According to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics and the ministry of commerce, Bangladesh produced only 0.082 million tonnes of ginger against the import of over 0.4 million tonnes in the last financial year (FY '20).
The country's onion production was 1.9 million tonnes while it imported 0.65 million tonnes in the FY '20.
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