The New Nation - Internet Edition

Syful Islam

A four-member syndicate is looting huge sums of money from the market through increasing price of sugar and other key essential commodities including edible oil, pulse and flour, alleged leaders of the sugar dealers association.

The syndicate has increased price of sugar by Tk 3,780 per ton within the last 25 days making the market totally unstable. Per kilogram of sugar is now selling at Tk 40 in the retail market, which was selling at Tk 32 one-month back.

Informed sources said Bangladeshi sugar market is now being controlled by four private refiners- City Group, Meghna Group, Igloo Group and Deshbandhu Sugar Mills Ltd. State-owned sugar mills could produce only 1.90 lakh tones of sugar out of total demand of 14 lakh tones. The rest is being met by the four private organisations.

Sources said the four private sugar company Wednesday stopped issuing Delivery Order (DO) in their Moulavibazar office to make the sugar market more unstable and increase price of the essential. On Tuesday last they sold per ton of sugar at Tk 36,450. On the other hand, the state owned Bangladesh Sugar and Food Industries Corporation (BSFIC) is selling sugar at Tk 34,000.

At present the BSFIC has stock of only 64,443 tones of sugar, which can meet only three months demand. Market players said once the stock of BSFIC is finished the private companies will raise the price of sugar to more than Tk 70 per kg and make people hostage.

President of Bangladesh Sugar Dealers Association Mustafizur Rahman Babul and General Secretary Alhajj Dewan Jinnah yesterday told The New Nation that private refiners and importers have already held consumers hostage and continuously increasing the price of sugar.

They said the government should bring control on the market through importing and selling sugar by the BSFIC and the Trading Corporation of Bangladesh.

Senior Vice President of the association Delwar Hossain said the government will have to face more complication with sugar price as it is facing due to price hike of edible oil and flour, if it fails to control the market.

BSFIC Chairman Kabir M Ashraf Alam yesterday told this correspondent that his organisation was making huge loss through selling sugar by Tk 11 lower than the production cost as the essential was dumping from neighbouring India. The production cost of per kg sugar of state owned mills is Tk 36.

He said the BSFIC can only produce 10 per cent of the total demand while the private sector supplies nearly 80 per cent.

In India, Kabir said, one has to follow the directives of the Sugar Directorate if he wants to sell sugar. But in Bangladesh BSIFC has no control on private sector, which results in monopoly among them, he said.

Meanwhile, the BSFIC recently has asked the government to raise the import duty to Tk 12,000 per ton from the existing Tk 5,000.