Rice prices edge up despite higher output
Rice prices have edged up, even though farmers bagged higher outputs in the last boro season.
But the spiral is seasonal as crop stocks from the previous harvests are depleting, millers claimed.
Retail prices of the fine grain, which sold at Tk 40-56 for a kilogram a week ago, rose 1.04 percent to Tk 40-57 yesterday, according to Trading Corporation of Bangladesh.
Prices of medium-quality rice increased 2.41 percent in the same period.
Prices of the staple increased between Tk 1 and Tk 2 a kilogram since the end of the Eid-ul-Azha holidays, said Abdul Matin, a rice trader at Mohammadpur Krishi Market.
Rice output rose to a record 3.44 crore tonnes in fiscal 2013-14, from 3.38 crore tonnes a year ago, according to Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics.
The latest production is higher than the annual consumption requirement of nearly 3 crore tonnes, according to a study by Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies.
Md Abdur Rashid, managing director of Rashid Agro and Food Products, a leading rice miller, said production was enough to meet national demand. The price spiral is marginal and it usually takes place in the last days of a season, he added.
"It is natural. Prices are unlikely to rise further ahead of aman paddy harvests that will begin in the next 15-30 days," said Rashid, also president of Bangladesh Auto Major and Husking Mills Association, a platform of more than 7,000 rice mills.
Sarwar Alam Kazol, joint secretary of the association, linked the price spiral to declining stocks of paddy with both the millers and farmers.
"The supply of paddy at local markets is low now a day," he said. "As a result, prices of fine and medium quality paddy, such as miniket, went up, leading to a spike in prices of the fine variety."
Prices of miniket paddy rose by Tk 100 to Tk 1,000 per maund (37.32kg) from a month ago.
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