Find out reasons behind rod, cement price hike

The commerce ministry has asked the Bangladesh Tariff Commission to enquire the reasons behind the recent price hike of rod and cement, two essential construction raw materials.

The directive came at the monthly meeting of the commodity price analysis and forecasting cell early last week. The commerce ministry asked BTC to submit a report on the matter.

Yesterday, the prices of 60-grade rod or the better quality ones were Tk 67,000-Tk 70,000 per tonne in Dhaka, up 6.2 percent from a month earlier.

The 40-grade rod was trading at Tk 58,000-Tk 60,000 per tonne in Dhaka yesterday from Tk 56,000-Tk 58,000 a month ago, according to Trading Corporation of Bangladesh.

Prices of cement have increased by up to Tk 40 each bag on average, said Md Noor Uddin Ahmed, proprietor of M/S Goodness Supply Company at East Tejturi Bazar, Tejgaon in Dhaka.

Rod and cement makers earlier said their cost of production would increase due to the tax and value-added tax measures on the import of raw materials by the National Board of Revenue (NBR) from fiscal 2019-20 and the gas price hike last month.

Bangladesh annually consumes 50-55 lakh tonnes of steel and the demand for the construction material is increasing, spurred by public infrastructure development and private construction. 

The annual demand for cement is 3.5 crore tonnes and the demand for the input is also rising, according to industry operators.