Why allow import of eggs after fixing its price in the local market?

Soon after fixing the retail sale of eggs at Tk 12 per piece, the government, rather dubiously, allowed the import of four crore eggs from India in efforts to bring stability to the volatile local egg market.

For quite some time, it was speculated that the relevant ministry might allow import of eggs to reduce its price in the local market.

But considering the business of local farmers, it did not allow the import.

But on September 14, the government fixed the price of egg at Tk 12 per piece along with two essential consumables, potato and onion.

After four days of this decision, allowing import of eggs by the government has raised the eyebrows of many who think that the government has deliberately created an opportunity for the importer eggs to sell the commodity at this higher price of Tk 12 per piece.

According to a report of a national daily yesterday, chicken eggs were sold for 26 rupees (Tk 34.29) per four pieces (one hali) in Kolkata on Sunday, or Tk 8.5 per piece.

Therefore, if Bangladesh importers sell eggs at Tk 12 per piece, this would not be reasonable because Tk 3.5 should not be the transport cost of an egg from India.

Obviously, the four firms that have allowed to import one crore eggs each would make hefty business out of this opportunity.

These four companies are Mrs Mim Enterprise, Tiger Enterprise, Prime Energy and Arnob Trading. These companies can only import eggs from birdflu and influenza-free countries.

According to the Fisheries and Livestock Ministry, as the production cost per egg is around Tk10.50, the price of eggs should not be more than Tk12 a piece at the retail level.

Yet the price of eggs in recent days has touched as high as Tk 15 per piece.

As business people have increasingly got involved in politics and there is a conspicuous lack of market monitoring, commodities in Bangladesh are sold at relatively much higher prices compared to the neighbouring countries in the region.

Moreover, there is also an overall corrosion of morality in every sector of Bangladesh as a result of absence of morality in the national politics.

We are of the opinion that unless politics in Bangladesh does not come on the right track, nothing significant can be achieved in the business sphere also.