Chittagong Bureau :
Rice prices are running like mad horses without any hindrance from any responsible quarters, so as the mid income and less income people had to suffer severely .
Prices of different categories of rice have been soaring without impediments despite claims from concerned authorities that there are enough stock and supply of rice throughout the country. Rice dealers are showing different excuses for the shortage of rice supply leading to augmented price for this staple food.
On the other hand, customers have repeatedly raised fingers at a syndicate of rice importers and hoarders who are storing up rice and deliberately curtailing supply to create artificial scarcity of rice for uplifting its price.
Since rice is the most widely consumed food grain in Bangladesh, rising prices of rice often hit people hard from all walks of life. In particular, people with middle and lower earnings find it arduously difficult to make ends meet when rice becomes too expensive.
Recently President of Chittagong Unit of the ruling party and former Mayor ABM Mohiuddin chowdhury in a party meeting called for abundant supply of rice and other foodstuffs through open market sale aimed at arresting price spiral. He also blamed the trade bodies of Chittagong for silence about the price hike of the foodgrains . And he also blamed the importers, hoarders of rice for creating artificial crisis of rice in the market.
It may be recalled open market sales (OMS) played effective roles for reducing rice prices during 2008. With references to that instance, running OMS aptly countrywide can resist the mounting uptrend of rice prices, people involved in trade and commerce have informed. If required importing rice from overseas needs to be expedited by the government to control rice price hike before things get further aggravated.
At the same time it is important to monitor whether businessmen are importing rice on equal terms with their letters of credit (LC). Bangladesh Bank should enforce a particular timeframe for importing rice after letters of credit are issued, a number of financial experts have expressed this opinion.
On the other hand, rice producers have informed they are surprised at the rising rice prices. According to reports 20% of total rice production was interrupted by this year’s floods in Bangladesh but a much higher quantity of rice has been in the meantime imported. So rice price is not supposed to go up in this situation, relevant sources have asserted.Moreover govt has exempted import duty on rice to lower the price hike of rice and govt should handle the distribution of rice among the people through strong distribution method, conxcious circles observed.
Rice prices are running like mad horses without any hindrance from any responsible quarters, so as the mid income and less income people had to suffer severely .
Prices of different categories of rice have been soaring without impediments despite claims from concerned authorities that there are enough stock and supply of rice throughout the country. Rice dealers are showing different excuses for the shortage of rice supply leading to augmented price for this staple food.
On the other hand, customers have repeatedly raised fingers at a syndicate of rice importers and hoarders who are storing up rice and deliberately curtailing supply to create artificial scarcity of rice for uplifting its price.
Since rice is the most widely consumed food grain in Bangladesh, rising prices of rice often hit people hard from all walks of life. In particular, people with middle and lower earnings find it arduously difficult to make ends meet when rice becomes too expensive.
Recently President of Chittagong Unit of the ruling party and former Mayor ABM Mohiuddin chowdhury in a party meeting called for abundant supply of rice and other foodstuffs through open market sale aimed at arresting price spiral. He also blamed the trade bodies of Chittagong for silence about the price hike of the foodgrains . And he also blamed the importers, hoarders of rice for creating artificial crisis of rice in the market.
It may be recalled open market sales (OMS) played effective roles for reducing rice prices during 2008. With references to that instance, running OMS aptly countrywide can resist the mounting uptrend of rice prices, people involved in trade and commerce have informed. If required importing rice from overseas needs to be expedited by the government to control rice price hike before things get further aggravated.
At the same time it is important to monitor whether businessmen are importing rice on equal terms with their letters of credit (LC). Bangladesh Bank should enforce a particular timeframe for importing rice after letters of credit are issued, a number of financial experts have expressed this opinion.
On the other hand, rice producers have informed they are surprised at the rising rice prices. According to reports 20% of total rice production was interrupted by this year’s floods in Bangladesh but a much higher quantity of rice has been in the meantime imported. So rice price is not supposed to go up in this situation, relevant sources have asserted.Moreover govt has exempted import duty on rice to lower the price hike of rice and govt should handle the distribution of rice among the people through strong distribution method, conxcious circles observed.
