Minister Tofail Ahmed on Tuesday said there was no syndicate behind the onion price hike in the country.
According to him, “There was no activity of syndicate behind onion production, import and marketing of onion in the country.”
The commerce minister came up with the comments while responding to a query placed by independent lawmaker M Rustam Ali Farazi of Pirojpur-3 in the parliament.
The annual onion demand in the country is nearly 2.2-2.5 million tonnes while country’s production is about 1.75 million tonnes, he said, adding that our production shortage is 0.7 million tonnes in comparison to our demand.
Hence, Mr Tofail said, we meet our demand by importing onion from international market – particularly from India.
UNB said even India has fixed minimum export price of per tonne onion to USD 850 as the country incurred loss in onion production due to severe flood during May-June period.
Side by side, the minister clarified, the price of local onion also witnessed abnormal rise in the local market as the prolonged flood earlier hampered local onion stock and production.
That’s why, he added, the onion price suffered hike in the local market due to higher export price.
