The temporary crisis in the edible oil market will be resolved within a few days, Commerce Adviser Sk Bashir Uddin said today.
The syndicate, which is manipulating the essential commodity prices, is not stronger than the government, he said.
“The government is monitoring the stock and supply of various products in the country, and the temporary edible oil crisis will be resolved soon.”
The adviser made the comments this afternoon while briefing journalists after inspecting the production activities of Daulatpur Jute Mill in Khulna, which is now being operated under private management.
Meanwhile, retailers and wholesalers in major cities, including Dhaka, Chattogram, and Barishal, reported to The Daily Star yesterday that oil supply had declined after the government rejected refiners’ requests to raise prices in January.
On the other hand, the Bangladesh Trade and Tariff Commission (BTTC) met with the refiners yesterday and concluded that the country does not currently have a shortage of edible oil.
Instead, local markets have a surplus of the cooking ingredient, and the commission stated that the ongoing edible oil crisis is artificial.
In the meeting, the BTTC discussed the overall edible oil supply situation with the country’s leading refiners, as local kitchen markets faced a shortage of both branded bottled and non-branded loose soybean oil, prompting a price spike.
At the meeting, top refiners stated that there is no supply crisis in the market; rather, they had increased soybean oil supply by 25 percent year-on-year in January this year.
According to data from the Trading Corporation of Bangladesh, the price of bottled soybean oil per litre is now Tk 175 to Tk 176, marking a 1 percent increase over the past month.
Over the past week, the price of loose soybean oil per litre rose nearly 4 percent, reaching Tk 180 to Tk 182 yesterday.
Retail prices of two-litre bottles of soybean oil, as well as palm oil and rice bran oil, have also increased.
For instance, the price of a one-litre bottle of rice bran oil rose by 6.41 percent to Tk 205 to Tk 210.
