Commerce Minister Tipu Munshi on Sunday said the imported onion will be available in the market from first week of next month and prices will come down at least upto Tk 60.
"Besides, the new onion of the season will also start to come to the market from next month so it is hoped that onion price will come down. Initially we could not understand that's why decided to import by onion by air freight to mitigate instant constraint. Now we are importing 60,000 MT of onion through 3 leading importers named 'City Group', Meghna Group' and 'S Alam Group'", the minister added.
Tipu Munshi revealed the information at an emergency meeting between three ministries and Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industries (FBCCI), at FBCCI conference room in Sunday.
In the wake of sky rocketing price hike, commerce, food, industries and agriculture ministries took part in the meeting with the country’s apex business body, in order to find a way that how the prices of essentials’ commodities can be controlled.
At the meeting, the commerce minister further said the government is going to take various measures to arrest the sky rocketing price hike of essential commodities.
Food Minister Sadhan Chandra Majumder, National Board of Revenue (NBR) Chairman M Mosharraf Hossain Bhuiyan, Agriculture Secretary and Industries Secretary were also present in the roundtable discussion.
Speakers discussed the overall situation of essential commodities
People especially the mid and low income groups are facing the worst situation as the prices of most essentials including onion, rice, vegetables and other food items marked a sharp rise across the country.
As a result frustration and uncertainty have already gripped the common people.
Prices of the most essential items have showed an upward trend since long. Apart from onion and rice, prices of most of the items continued to register an upward trend since long.
On the other hand, there is no sign of coming down of onion price till date as the spice is now being sold at Taka 240 to Taka 250 per kg
Besides, all kinds of vegetables have marked rise in the retail markets of the town.
All winter vegetables including cauliflowers, cabbages, bean, bringal and beans are now being sold at high rate.