Essential prices up on cyclone fallout

BDPREM Business Report

Customers buy vegetables at a kitchen market in Dhaka. Photo: BDPREM

Prices of most essential commodities shot up in kitchen and wholesale markets in the capital yesterday with the effects of the devastating cyclone Sidr pinching consumers.

Prices of onion, potato, tomato, eggplant, beans, green chili, ginger and a few other winter vegetables rose between Tk 2 and Tk 10 per kg, while prices of rice, flour and edible oil remained relatively stable at the wholesale level.

For example, onions rose from Tk 60 per kg to Tk 65, potatoes from Tk 22 to Tk 25 and tomatoes from Tk 55 to Tk 75.

However, prices of cabbage, green papaya, bitter gourd and snake gourd fell sharply as farmers in the cyclone-hit areas tried to shift damaged and ripe produces quickly as many storage facilities have been destroyed.

Wholesale traders in Karwan Bazar feared the higher prices would continue for the next few days due to shortages caused by the hurricane.

Sheikh Bashir, who owns a grocery store in Tejturi Bazar, came to the Karwan Bazar wholesale market to buy potato for his retail shop.

He was found complaining about the sudden price hike yesterday.

"I just bought potatoes here in the morning at Tk 100 a Palla

(5 Kgs), but now they are asking for Tk 115, how can I remain trustworthy to my regular customers if prices go up within such a short span of time?" he questioned.

Wholesale traders blamed disruption in supply chains and the huge damage caused by hurricane for the price situation. They also thought a sudden increase in demand after a couple days of slowdown is behind the price hike.

"As retailers from across the country couldn't come to Dhaka's wholesale markets during the last couple of days due to rains and cyclone signal, they showed up today (yesterday) with increased demand at a time when the supply is already low, " Saiful Islam, a wholesale trader in Karwan Bazar said.

"We had to dump five truck-loads of rotten tomatoes just the day before yesterday as there were no customers. But today we don't have enough tomatoes to sell," said Asad Miah, who is a regular supplier to this market from Munshiganj area.

Meanwhile, taking advantage of the power outage, some traders raised the price of candles by between 100 and 400 percent.

This correspondent found a candle that usually sells at Tk 3 was being sold at Tk 10 at a small grocery outlet in the Karwan Bazar area.

"We had to pay higher wholesale prices for the candles as you could hardly find any candle due to the overwhelming demand during the blackout, the salesperson said.