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Locals yet to benefit from int'l price fall

UNB, Dhaka
Unlike in the case of increases, the consumers in Bangladesh hardly receive the benefit of declining prices of essentials in international market.
The consumers in the country have to pay a higher price as soon as commodity prices go up in the international market, but they hardly get any immediate relief when prices go down in the global market.
In the last three months, according to a Citibank NA study, palm oil price fell by more than 50 percent, wheat and soybean oil prices dropped by 40 percent and sugar price fell by more than 25 percent.
But the consumers here had to buy a litre of soybean oil (loose) yesterday at an average
of Tk 102 as compared to Tk 103 a month back and Tk 121 three months ago when the price in the international market was at its peak, according to a commerce ministry monitoring report.
Palm oil price however declined almost at par with the international market - selling here at an average of Tk 62 per litre yesterday against Tk 103 a month back.
But the prices of wheat flour and sugar remained almost static over the period.
“This is the perennial prob-lem of our economy," Commerce Secretary Feroz Ahmed told the news agency yesterday. "Prices get a boost in the local market as fast as possible when those increase in international market, but don't follow the trend in case of fall," he said.
He said the commerce ministry is monitoring the market trend and will convene a meeting probably for the second week of next month to review the price movements as compared to the international market
Another senior official of the ministry, requesting anonymity, said there is also a problem in holding such meeting with the businesspeople as they often show excuses one way or the other.
“The (edibleoil) refinerswill lose overTk 500 crore this year," claimed A Rouf Chowdhury, president of Bangladesh Vegetable Oil Refiners and Vanaspati Manufacturers Association.
He told the news agency that the palm oil was selling in the local market even below the international price.
Asked about the soybean oil price, Rouf Chowdhury said import of edible oil has been lower this year.
Meanwhile, Association of Bankers Bangladesh President K Mahmood Sattar has expressed concern that the commercial banks would face liquidity problem as they apprehend delayed repayment of import financing due to decline in the prices of imported commodities.
“We raised our concern only,” he told reporters after a "bankers meeting” at Bangladesh Bank yesterday.
Replying to a question, Sattar said the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI) and the authorities concerned are supposed to monitor the commodity prices in the local market.