The price of onion increased further in the retail market on Thursday with the wholesalers and retailers blaming each other for the price hike.
Onion price jumped by Tk 15-Tl 20 a kg and was selling at Tk 80-90 a kg while the imported onion was selling at Tk 90-95 a kg on the retail market in the city.
Zakir Hossain, a trader at Karwanbazar, said that increase in the whole sale price had forced them to sell onion at higher prices.
He alleged that the prices depended on the wholesalers who controlled the market.
Ratan Saha, an importer of onion at Shyambazar, denied the allegation saying that the wholesale market of onion remained ‘stable’ but ‘we have no control on the retailers and they are charging higher prices’.
He said that the supply of onion increased somewhat in the market in last couple of days.
Locally produced onion was sold at Tk 60-62 a kg on the wholesale market on Thursday while onion imported from Pakistan was being sold at Tk 45-50 a kg.
According to a study by the International Food Policy Research Institute released
on Wednesday, the main reason for the recent onion price surge was a decline in onion production in India due to unfavorable weather conditions in its major onion production zones.
It said that at the same time Bangladeshi traders began speculative stockpiling of onion in order to make extra profits anticipating a significant decline in imports of onion from India due to the weather-induced production shortfall there.
The price had shown a downward trend after the government announced a decision to import onion from sources other than India but it was short-lived, said the report.
‘Prices began to rise again as onion imports fell considerably once the Indian government raised their minimum export price from $250 per tonne to $650 per tonne to discourage exports and control its prices in India,’ it said.
According to the latest Bangladesh Bank data, the quantity of imported onion increased by 3.72 per cent in June-August of 2013 compared with that of the same period in 2012.
The BB data showed that the businesspeople had imported 1.67 lakh tonnes of onion worth $35.44 million in June-August 2013 while 1.61 lakh tonnes worth $22.13 million in the corresponding months of 2012.
The businesspeople had imported 43,000 metric tonnes of onion in August 2013, while 50,000 metric tonnes in August 2012.
The BB data, however, showed that the opening of letters of credit for onion had decreased to 1.62 metric tonnes in the last three months from 1.82 metric tonnes in the same period of 2012.
-With New Age input
