Staff Reporter :
Consumers will have to pay higher to buy soybean and palm oil from Saturday as refiners have decided to increase prices by up to Tk 8 per litre on the ground of increasing import costs.
Currently, people have to pay Tk 160 to buy one litre of bottled soybean oil
The same bottle will cost Tk 168 from the January 8, next week, according to a letter sent by the Bangladesh Vegetables Oil Refiners’ And Vanaspati Manufacturers Association to the senior secretary of the commerce ministry on January 3.
The association said it wanted to increase prices of the essential commodity from December 3 last year but refrained from hiking prices considering the purchasing capacity of the commoners.
But it is not possible to maintain the current prices in view of import costs, it said in its latest letter.
Refiners on November wanted to increase prices by Tk 12 per litre from the existing prices of Tk 160 each litre.
In its letter to the commerce ministry, the association said prices would be increased by Tk 8 per litre of soybean oil.
The spike, which would be the fourth time since May last year, has been announced the time when consumer prices have been increasing, influenced by rising international prices of commodities, higher exchange rate of US dollar against taka, soaring transport and other costs following 23 per cent increase of diesel and kerosene prices by the government in the first week of November.
Inflation hit a 13-month high of 5.98 per cent from October’s 5.7 per cent. This was up for the fourth consecutive month, according to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics.
Bangladesh annually consumes nearly 20 lakh tonnes of edible oil and it has to import 90 per cent of the vegetable oil to meet domestic requirement, according to Bangladesh Trade and Tariff Commission.
Refiners said maximum retail prices of 5-litre bottle of soybean oil would be Tk 800 from January 8.
Yesterday consumers had to pay up to Tk 750 to buy 5-litre bottle of soybean oil at retails in Dhaka.
The prices were 29 per cent higher from Tk 540-Tk 580 the same day a year ago, according to the Trading Corporation of Bangladesh.
The association also decided to increase prices of palm oil, according to the letter to the commerce ministry.
