Construction material prices still high, despite decline in world mkts

Staff Reporter :
Domestic consumers are not facilitating with the decline in prices of the construction raw materials in the world markets due to the higher dollar price and the existing energy crisis.
The entrepreneurs of the sector see no sign of decreasing the prices of the raw materials in near future in the local market despite freight cost has also declined.
The import price of the rod, the key materials of the construction, was $591 dollar per tonne in June this year, but it reduced to $469 dollar.
Despite the decline in prices of the rod in the global markets, it has increased in local market.
According the Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB), the prices of rods in the retail market were Tk 89,000 per tonne in June but it now increased to Tk93,000 per tonne.
 The entrepreneurs of the sector indentified two reasons for the increasing the prices of rods. Firstly, the import cost has increased due to the higher dollar price and secondly, increase in production cost for ongoing gas and power shortage.
Mohammad Sarwar Alam, Director of Golden Ispat Limited, said, “The entrepreneurs are not able to take advantage of the decrease in the price of raw materials world markets as they could not open letter of credits (LCs) due to dollar shortage.”
There will be a shortage of raw materials, if the entrepreneurs fail to open LCs as per the demand in days to come, he added.
Quoting the name of a company, he said that the company was trying to open LC for importing only 500 tonne raw materials in October 28, but it failed to do it and after one and half month latter the company was able to open LC for import the raw materials.
Not only rod, but same situation is prevailing in case of all other raw materials including cement, he added.
Currently, the cement is selling at Tk500 to Tk550 per 50 kg sack in the local market. The main ingredient of the cement is clinker. It prices have declined to $10 to $15 dollar per tonne compared to June this year. But the price of the raw materials
has increased in domestic markets due to higher dollar price, the businesses said.
They, however, said the import of raw material of rod and cement is higher in the first five months of the current fiscal year than the same period of the last year, despite the LC opening complexities and trend will continue in days to come.
Zahir Uddin, Managing Director of Confidence Cement, said, “The price of raw materials in global markets is now stable. But the main problem is now LC opening complexities. The prices of construction materials will remain stable in local market, if we able to ensure supply of raw materials.”