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TCB sale yet to influence market

Refayet Ullah Mirdha
The sale of basic commodities by the Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB) in the city could not make any positive impact on their prices due to scanty supply against the increased demand for such items on the eve of Ramadan.
Traders said both the quantity and varieties of basic commodities sold by the TCB dealers is too inadequate to have any positive impact on the market.
The TCB is selling only edible oil and sugar through its appointed dealers in Dhaka city in a limited scale while other imported items are yet to arrive in the country.
The demand for edible oil, sugar, chickpeas, onion and lentil goes up during the Ramadan.
The commerce ministry started its sales operation from Wednesday through the TCB dealers to have a positive
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impact on the prices of basic commodities during the Ramadan.
The TCB began sales operation from its current stock of 3,56,136 litres edible oil and 1,000 tonnes sugar in its warehouses.
During a visit to a market yesterday, it was noticed that the commodities were sold at their previous high rate defying the TCB sales operation rules.
The trading corporation has fixed the retail edible oil price at Tk 76 per litre and sugar Tk 40 per kg. The dealers bought sugar at Tk 37 per kg and edible oil Tk 73 per litre from theTCB warehouse.
Now theTCB is distributing 1,000 litres of edible oil and 1,000 kgs of sugar to each dealer in the city from its warehouses in Dhaka.
But the demand of relatively low priced TCB items is much higher compared with the items selling in the open market, as noticed during a visit in the city.
"I have sold edible oil and sugar worth Tk 37,000 on the second day of sales operation and Tk 25,000 on the first day on August 20," said Lovely Sultana Mejbah, a TCB dealer in the city's Khilgaon area.
Lovely, owner of Lovely Enterprise, said the supply of edible oil is near to finish, as the demand for these items is high ahead of the Ramadan.
Talking to The Daily Star, Nilufar Rahman, a dealer of the TCB in Hazaribagh area, said the demand for edible oil is higher than that for sugar. She said the price gap between the TCB sugar and open market sugar is very small. "As a result, the demand for sugar is comparatively low," she said.
When asked, a senior official of TCB warehouse said until yesterday 101 dealers lifted 1,000 litres of edible oil and 1,000 kilograms (kgs) of sugar each for selling during the Ramadan.
"We are delivering goods to dealers even on public holi-days--Friday and Saturday," theTCB official said.
TCB officials said they would start countrywide sales operation of these commodities after the arrival of 25,000 tonnes of edible oil and 25,000 tonnes of sugar from Malaysia and Thailand, respectively.