Editorial
Keeping the prices stable
Monitoring and timely corrective measures key
COMMERCE Minister Faruk Khan has been consistently maintaining that the stocks of essentials are sufficient and thus there is no cause for price hike. The businessmen say that international commodity prices rising, local prices are getting pushed up. But business insiders contend that since the present stocks have been procured when the prices abroad were lower, there is no valid reason why their current local prices would soar.
It is also relevant to point out that while the traders are reluctant to lower their prices following a decrease in international prices, they never tire of cashing in on any increase in world commodity prices to jack up local prices, often disproportionately.
We take the view that with a rise in the import volumes of commodities ahead of Ramadan in the private sector facilitated by the government's liberalisation policies, supply side of the market looks set to be steady and strong. Nevertheless, howsoever abundant the availability of essentials might be, two factors can upset healthy supply outlook in a way that would fuel speculative trading leading up to a price spiral. The first is panic buying in anticipation of rising prices in Ramadan; and secondly, more cogently and damagingly, hoarding and stockpiling of goods by way of creating artificial scarcities and manipulating prices. The exhortation of the commerce minister upon the business community not to resort to profiteering but be content with making legitimate profits by spreading these thin over larger volumes of sales in the Ramadan will be of little avail if the traders themselves are not self-motivated to do the same out of sense of social commitment. A part of the answer lies in involving the Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB) as a market player, a role currently in dire need of an expansion.
One very important step that is often talked about but hardly ever undertaken in earnest has to do with checkmating 'toll' collection every step of the way through the transportation, distribution and marketing conduits. Ubiquitous extortionism is the single most portent reason behind marking up of prices. That is where a law and order problem acquires a politico-economic dimension.
The commerce minister has urged the FBCCI to set up a monitoring cell and display price lists at the wholesale and retail outlets. Government will have a price monitoring cell of its own which, we suggest, ought to be effectively decentralised. Usually the focus is on price monitoring, seldom on monitoring of stocks and supplies. Let's have periodic statements on stock positions apart from displaying price charts.
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