Edible oil to be produced domestically: PM
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said yesterday the country would go into production of edible oil from this year in a bid to meet internal demand.
“We have to depend on 90 percent import of edible oil, and syndicates always manipulate the market and hike prices of the edible oil to make money. So we have decided to start production of oil in the country”, she said.
Hasina, also the president of ruling Awami League (AL), was addressing a view exchange meeting with the party's Rangamati district unit leaders at her Gono Bhaban residence in the city.
She said the soil of the country is fertile and it is possible to produce more cooking oil, which will be refined and marketed domestically. This move would be taken to reduce the country's dependence on imported soybean oil, she added.
At the meeting, the prime minister also hit back at some civil society members who criticise the government saying that the government has not attained anything in the last three years.
Hasina said this section always criticises the government, as it does not get extra care from a democratic government. These learned people have no capacity to go to people for mandate, but have the desire to go to power, she added.
“A learned person of international repute had given 'fatwa' during the caretaker government that the caretaker regime could continue its tenure for unlimited period instead of 90 days. That's why the caretaker government had been in power for two years without holding elections in 90 days”.
The premier said her government is working sincerely to implement the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) peace accord and for better educational and health care services of the area with adverse communication systems.
AL high-ups including its acting general secretary Mahbub Ul Alam Hanif, Matia Chowdhury, Sheikh Fazlul Karim Selim, Abdul Latif Siddique, Kazi Zafarullah, Abul Hasnat Abdullah, Dipankar Talukder, and Ahmed Hossain, among others, were present at the meeting.
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