Sunday World 3

Expecting price fall unrealistic: Mirza Aziz

Staff Correspondent

Finance adviser Mirza Azizul Islam Saturday said it would be unrealistic to expect that prices of essentials, especially rice, would come down, and the government rather planned budgetary steps to stop prices from spiralling further, report agencies. He cited rice hoarding at farmer’s level and soaring global prices of other commodities as factors that made prospects for cooling down local market bleak. ‘We should not expect a fall in market prices as the prices of commodities including food, fertiliser and fuel are increasing on the international market,’ he told a function, attended by trade body leaders, economists and consumer rights campaigners. Our staff correspondent reports, the adviser said holding of a significant amount of rice by the farmers might result in relatively higher price of the food-grain in the coming days. ‘It is necessary to ensure certain benefits to the farmers although as consumers we will slightly suffer for rice price hike,’ he said at the seminar on ‘price hike and poverty alleviation: budget 2008-09’. Organised by Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry in collaboration with Bangladesh Economic Association and Oxfam Bangladesh at the chamber auditorium, the discussion was chaired by Bangladesh Economic Association president Quazi Kholiquzzaman Ahmad. The seminar was told that only 25 per cent of rice produced in the just-concluded boro season had come to the market compared to around 40 per cent traded through the market in one month of harvesting. Stating so, a commerce ministry official Bikash Chandra Saha blamed some non-governmental and local financial organisations for hoarding a huge quantity of rice, putting a negative impact on the market. He termed the price of coarse rice at Tk 33 a kilogram reasonable but the price of soya bean after upward adjustment of fuel prices appeared to be irrational. He mentioned that the commerce ministry had initiated certain studies on market data. A representative of Consumers’ Association of Bangladesh Emdad Hossain Malek said prices of essentials increased by more than 15 per cent during the previous one year, adding that prices of food items increased by Tk 1-Tk 2 only after fuel price hike in the past week. ‘We have been hearing for the last 15 years that a Consumer Rights Protection Act will be enacted. This government had also said it would be framed by June 30,’ he said, and regretted that there was no arm of the government to make market interventions. Kholiquzzaman pointed out that the trends of increase in the prices of rice and pulses were likely to affect the food habit of the Bangladeshis. The economist underlined the importance of strong government to ensure fair practices and improve the management of the market so that there was no undue rise in commodity prices. Admitting to the government’s due role in monitoring and regulating the market management, the finance adviser sought cooperation from all including the business community to help the people overcome the plight of the price inflation, which in his views, was mostly an imported one. He, however, said the government had taken a combination of fiscal and other measures to ensure the welfare of the poor and vulnerable groups. He added that the proposed Consumers’ Rights Protection Act would be announced within a couple of months. Dwelling on a trade body leader’s claim that fariahs [middlemen] were not businessmen, Mirza Aziz said they were also traders and the market system currently operative in the country had developed in many years. In his address, DCCI president Hossain Khaled suggested that easier, cheaper and quicker transportation of essential commodities could ensure proper supply of goods and thus reduce their prices. Presenting a paper, Uttam Kumar Deb of Centre for Policy Dialogue stressed the need for proper implementation of the Tk 2,000 crore minimum employment guarantee scheme and suggested that the government could also play the role as facilitator in domestic labour migration.

Nasim’s brain haemorrhage continues

Staff Correspondent

Though the condition of ailing Awami League central leader Mohammad Nasim is ‘clinically stable’, his brain haemorrhage continues. Different tests confirmed that Nasim’s brain haemorrhage continued, said AKM Mahbubul Hoque, head of medical services at LabAid Hospital, while talking with reporters about his (Nasim) latest health condition on Saturday. Hoque also informed that Nasim was not out of danger yet and he would be kept under intensive care for some more days. The former home minister, convicted in a graft case, was first taken to Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University and later shifted to LabAid Hospital on June 24 after he had suffered a brain stroke at Kashimpur jail in Gazipur. The stroke paralysed the left side of his body and triggered brain haemorrhage.

1m tonnes of rice go towaste for milling

Kazi Azizul Islam

Rice millers have sought help from the government for developing the technology in their units to save about one million tonnes of rice being wasted while milling. Millers said maximum 67 kilograms of rice are produced by husking each quintal of paddy in the old angle-bar milling units while output in the modern auto-crushing unit is at least 70 kilograms. The ratio of broken rice is much higher in old angle-bar milling units that cannot net a significant mount of thinner rice being drained out with husks. Federation of North Bengal Rice Millers Association in a letter sent to the food ministry on June 18 called for immediate installation of auto-crushers in the rice mills across the country, replacing backdated angle-bar mills. ‘It is possible to save one million tonnes of rice if the government provides us with technological support,’ said Layek Ali, general secretary of the federation. The federation represents some 12,000 rice mills in the 16 northern districts which supply more than two-thirds of the government’s procurement and supplies to the market. ‘If the government undertakes a special programme for upgrading technology in mills and arranges loans to millers at 6 per cent, at least one-fourth of the country’s rice mills will replace the old mills,’ Ali said. He said that the government was committed to providing support to agro-based industries, and the central bank had launched such soft funds for thrust sectors. M Abdul Baqui, an agro-economist, told New Age that rice surplus countries like Thailand and Vietnam are entirely diverted into auto-crushing from old ones. ‘Potential for much more outputs through advanced milling has been overlooked in Bangladesh,’ said Baqui, also a former director general of Bangladesh Rice Research Institute. ‘The government should pay attention soon in this regard.’ He informed that the Indian government banned angle-bar rice milling in early ’90s and provided package support to the millers for installing auto-crushers. Industry sources said installation of a small capacity auto-crusher, made in China or India, requires between Tk 3.5 lakh and Tk 5.5 lakh while advanced ones from England or the USA require Tk 30 lakh. A few rice millers in the northern region have already installed advanced milling units for husking and polishing rice and sorting out inedible black rice and stones automatically. The rice millers usually sell fine variety of rice with their own brands and receive much higher than average prices.