Runaway Prices: Onion OMS from today
Open market sales of onions, the key cooking ingredient which has suddenly become costly, will start today as the government looks to rein in the runaway prices.
At least five trucks will be selling onions in Dhaka city, said Md Humayun Kabir, spokesperson of the Trading Corporation of Bangladesh.
Consumers will be able to buy 2 kilograms of onions each from the trucks deployed in front of National Press Club and at Motijheel and Farmgate’s Khamarbari. Two more trucks might be placed at Jatrabari and Mirpur.
No decision has been taken yet regarding the price, but it will be less than the existing market rate, he added.
Traders have raised the prices of onion by 25 percent or Tk 12.5 each kilogramme overnight to Tk 55-70, banking on India’s slapping of a minimum export price (MEP) for the tuber at $850 (Tk 71,821) for per tonne of onion.
The neighbouring country imposed the restriction on September 13 to contain the price hike in its domestic market.
Since then, some retailers in Dhaka city asked Tk 80 for a kg of onion, which Bangladesh has to import to meet a portion of its requirement for a shortage of domestic production.
Yesterday, onions prices dropped marginally at the wholesale market at Shyambazar but edged up at the retail level.
Onion prices rose 2.4 percent to Tk 58-Tk 70 a kg yesterday from Tk 55-Tk 70 a day earlier, according to market price data compiled by the TCB. Prices of locally grown onion was higher than the imported onion.
Narayan Saha, a wholesaler at Shyambazar, one of the main wholesale markets for onions, said the prices of locally produced onions declined Tk 5 each kilogramme yesterday to Tk 54-55. Prices of imported tuber also fell.
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