Chickpea cheaper as global prices drop
Chickpea has become cheaper in the port city due to a huge amount of it being imported following a price drop in the international market.
The Australian chickpea—which meets around 90 percent of the domestic demand in Bangladesh—was sold at Tk 52 a kg yesterday in the Khatunganj wholesale market, down from Tk 57 a kg 10 days ago.
In February this year, India raised the import duty on chickpea by 10 percentage points to 40 percent to boost sales of the pulse crop's Indian variety.
As a result, Australia had to cut the prices of its chickpea, for which India was a major consumer.
In January, a tonne of Australian chickpea was sold at $640 in the international market, which came down to around $560 per tonne in March.
Taking advantage of the price drop, Bangladeshi importers brought in 149,000 tonnes of chickpea in the January to April period for Ramadan, which was almost double of the fasting month's total demand of 80,000 tonnes.
Moreover, sales of the popular Ramadan staple from the Khatunganj market fell sharply as the inter-district cost of transportation almost doubled after a cut in the vehicle's maximum weight limit for movement on highways.
A truck can now carry a maximum of 13 tonnes of goods at a time, which was 22 tonnes before the restriction, said Ratan Ghosh, a wholesaler of the trading hub.
Because of the restriction, businesses now have to spend nearly 2 times more to take goods from the market to different parts of the country, said Ashutosh Mohajan, proprietor of Payel Traders, another wholesaler.
“Many businesses reduced the amount of chickpeas they intended to purchase from us due to the rising transportation cost, which resulted in a drop in its retail and wholesale prices.”
Retailers at Karnaphuli CDA Market were selling chickpea of the higher grade at Tk 70 a kg yesterday, down from Tk 75 a kg before Ramadan.
The lower grade was found to be going at Tk 65 a kg, down from Tk 70 a week ago.
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