Commerce Minister Amir Khosru Mahmud Chowdhury yesterday told the Jatiya Sangsad that steps were underway to develop an independent watchdog with enough authority to regulate commodity prices .
"In the age of globalisation, the government has little role in fixing or regulating prices of commodities," he said replying to a question by ruling party lawmaker Moshiur Rahman.
The minister said there was no denying the fact that the government had little to do with the commodity prices, but yet we try to regulate it through discussions with importers, retailers and others concerned asking them to keep the prices within a limit.
The comments came as an apparently annoyed Moshiur questioned the commerce ministry's ability to control prices of essentials saying despite government announcements fixing prices of edible oils and several other products, people were being forced to pay higher prices.
Khosru, however, said the proposed watchdog would be formed following the examples of other developed countries and the body would have authority of policing factories and marketplaces and impose penalties for anomalies in pricing while the government would play a complementary role in this regard.
Earlier, replying to a question on public sector trading and price regulation from JP lawmaker Moshiur Rahman Ranga, the minister
said there could be no justification of trading in the public sector only for price controlling as a such enterprises as in many cases such concerns could appear as monopoly businesses.
He said the state-run TCB was never a losing concern as it fixed high prices for its commodities to be realised from common people.
The supplementary followed a question by Moshiur Rahman Ranga who asked if the government had any plan to currently closed staterun Consumers Supply Company (COSCO) in reply to which Khosru answered in the negative.
"The government does not have any such plan because of the principle to not to get involved in any commercial activities in line with the World Trade Organisation policies," he said.