50,000 tonnes onions to be imported from India: State Minister

Onions are being imported from India to keep onion prices under control during Ramadan. State Minister for Commerce Ahsanul Islam said 50,000 tonnes of onions will be imported from India this week.

Minister of State for Commerce informed the matter while attending the event organized by women entrepreneurs at the Bangabandhu International Conference Center (BICC) in capital's Agargaon.

The state minister said, "Within two days, the sale of edible oil will start at Tk163 per liter in the retail market."

Ahsanul Islam said that he had a bilateral discussion with India's Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal during the 13th ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. There, India's commerce minister said that he has ordered to issue a letter regarding sending 50,000 tonnes of onions to Bangladesh. They received that letter yesterday.

The state minister for commerce said that onions will start coming to Bangladesh this week.

On February 20, it was decided to reduce the price of soybean oil in the task force meeting held at the Ministry of Commerce. It was decided to reduce the price of soybean oil by Tk10. On the same day, it was announced that the new rate of soybean oil will be effective from March 1. However, the retail market has not yet started selling oil at the new price.

In this regard, Ahsanul Islam said, "From yesterday (March 1), the supply of edible oil has started at the maximum retail price of Tk163 in Milgate. It may take a day or two to see the impact in the retail market. Monitoring has started in this regard since yesterday. Even today, our team has gone to every oil mill."