InfoSAWIT, DHAKA – To relieve the consumers’ economic pressure for the next Ramadhan days, the Government of Government recently announced some polices to get cheaper products and escalate many important commodity supplies. Even though the policies were published, there was no help realization in many markets.

The policies were announced on 8 February 2024 that covered, to minimize additional value tax and import duty on the main commodities, such as, sugar, vegetable oil, dates, and rice. According to the reports from the markets, the increasing commodity price keeps happening particularly sugar and palm oil.

For instance, in Khatunganj, the main grocery in Chattogram, the sugar at Tk 50 per maund (37,65 Kg) is about Tk 4.950 to Tk 5.000. Palm oil got more expensive at Tk 100 in just one week. It is now at Tk 4.950 per maund.

Though other commodities, such as, vegetable oil and dates remain stable in some certain regions, the visit to Karwan Bazar in Dhaka revealed that the more expensive dates and palm oil took place in the past one week. The traders connected it with the increasing import costs and forced the grocery traders to adjust their selling price.

The plan of the government to minimize import duty could decrease many commodity prices. The implementation postponement and logistic challenges get the impact. The tax officials reported the leap of product transportation after the government published to minimize tax import but there was no significant change in the markets.

As InfoSAWIT quoted from Asianews, though import duty got minimized, the report mentioned, there was not rice import in the past three years. This raised questioned about how effective the policies could be to solve the lacks of supplies.

Meanwhile retailers and consumers mentioned that they were frustrated because there was not real advantage from what the government initiated. Though the government had will to relieve the people’s burden, the traders and importers got the advantages from the import duty reduction.

The observer mentioned the weak law enforcement, market manipulation by the immoral traders could be the factors to the increasing commodity price. This meant, it needs to closely get law enforcement to confirm that what the government published should be delivering advantages for the parties that needed the most. (T2)