State Minister for Commerce Ahsanul Islam Titu on Sunday said the government will fix the prices of rice based on variety and season-based production cost on Pahela Baishakh (April 14).
“Already a framework fixing prices and production cost of rice including at miller level, wholesale level and retail level has been formulate and the Food, Agriculture and Commerce Ministries will inform it after finalising the prices at a meeting, ” he said.
The minister came up with the information while talking to reporters after attending a task force meeting on the market situation and price of daily essentials at the Secretariat.
Claiming that the government is able to keep the price of daily essentials at tolerable level, the state minister for Commerce, said “We think that we’ll be able to keep it at tolerable level till Eid-ul-Fitr. Though there are some challenges and you are all aware about it. In that case transportation is a big challenge and the government is working on it.”
Noting that there is plenty of sugar supply, the minister said the government has no interest in importing sugar.
Although the prices of rice in the international market has increased by 25 percent in the last one year, it has not increased more than four percent in our local market while the price of unrefined oil or palm oil has increased to 13 percent from the existing 11 percent, he said.
Rice is the staple food of about 135 million people of Bangladesh. It provides nearly 48% of rural employment, about two-third of total calorie supply and about one-half of the total protein intake of an average person in the country. Rice sector contributes one-half of the agricultural GDP and one-sixth of the national income in Bangladesh.
Almost all of the 13 million farm families of the country grow rice. Rice is grown on about 10.5 million hectares which has remained almost stable over the past three decades.
