Anisul Islam Noor :The government has decided to import onion by the Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB) from Myanmar, Afghanistan, Egypt and Pakistan to bring down the onion price in the market. In an emergency inter-ministerial meeting held on Tuesday at commerce ministry, the decision has been taken, said Hedayetullah Al Mamun , Senior Secretary of the Ministry. The Ministry will also take steps for quick delivery of onion from the ports, he said.He said that they had requested the central bank to reduce the margin while opening the letter of credit (LC) to import onions.On the other hand, TCB Chairman Brigadier General AKM Iqbal questioned the abnormal rise of the onion price despite enough stock in hand. “We are searching for the reason and dens of illegal stock of the spice item. The intelligence wings have also started to trace the reason,” said the TCB Chairman on Tuesday after visiting Khatunganj wholesale market in Chittagong.Annual demand of onion is around 22 lakh tonnes of which 19 lakh tonnes are met locally. As a result, about 3.5 lakh tonnes of onion are imported.As such, there can be no onion crisis, General Iqbal said.He claimed that onion price has begun declining and it would soon come down to Tk30, or even less, as both import and local supply are normal. He, however, admitted that onion price has increased in the international markets.It jumped in Bangladesh to Tk 90 to 100 in just one week after India raised its export price to $700 (Tk 54,460) per tone from $425 (Tk 33,065).According to the TCB, each kg of local onion was sold between Tk 75 and 80 and Indian onion between Tk 85 and 90 on Monday.India, which faces shortfall in onion production this year due to flooding, is importing onion from Afghanistan and Egypt after Pakistan stopped export. India produces 1.90 crore tonnes of onion annually.
