The state-owned Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB) will start open market sale (OMS) of potato at Tk 25 a kg soon.
Commerce Minister Tipu Munshi made the disclosure on Sunday at a meeting.
The meeting was held at the secretariat with potato traders, cold storage owners and concerned government agencies, organised by the commerce ministry following the rocketing trend of potato prices in recent days.
The commerce minister said there is no shortage of potato in the country for now and the traders must follow the government fixed maximum prices of potato.
He said maximum retail prices will be brought down to Tk 30 a kg soon through strict market monitoring.
The Department of Agricultural Marketing (DAM) under the agriculture ministry on October 14 fixed the maximum cold-storage, wholesale and retail prices of potato as Tk 23, Tk 25 and Tk 30 a kg respectively after calculating all costs.
The DAM decision came as prices of potato shot up by 25 per cent last week to Tk 50-55 a kg.
The current price is 90-100 per cent higher than that of a year ago, according to DAM.
However, prices of potato declined by only Tk 5.0 a kg both at wholesale and retail markets since October 14 but still much higher than the government rates.
Diamond (BARI Alu 7) and cardinal varieties of stored potato were sold at Tk 43-50 a kg while ‘carriage’ variety at Tk 50-55 a kg on Sunday at the city retail markets.
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