Rerunning the futile exercise of setting maximum rates of sugar to keep its price in check, the commerce ministry Wednesday revised the rates for millers, wholesalers and retailers upward. The mill-gate price of the sweetener has been raised by Tk 6 per kilogram to Tk 45, while wholesale and retail prices have been upped to Tk 46 and Tk 48-49. The new pricing was decided Wednesday at a meeting between the commerce ministry and representatives of sugar refiners and trade bodies. ‘Sugar won’t be sold at more than Tk 50 from today,’ commerce secretary Firoz Ahmed confidently told reporters after the meeting.

The ministry will monitor sugar market every day and take actions if traders are found selling sugar at more than Tk 50 a kg, he warned. Millers and traders have a history of agreeing on maximum rates fixed by the government and then forgetting about that the next day due to lax monitoring and absence of follow-up actions as happened during the month of Ramadan. In the middle of August, they agreed on mill-gate rate at Tk 39 and retail price at Tk 42 per kg, but sugar was available nowhere at these rates and retail price rather shot up to Tk 64 in Dhaka and even to Tk 70 in places in the week before Eid-ul-Fitr on September 21.

Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry president Annisul Huq, who attended the meeting, argued that the sugar price was hiked at the mill gate in line with increases in global prices. ‘During Ramadan, the government had fixed mill-gate price of sugar at Tk 39 per kg while its price on the international market was $500 per tonne. But now global price of sugar exceeded $600,’ Annis said quoting millers and defending the upward revision of official rates. After Eid, declining demand and increasing supply pushed down sugar price to Tk 50 level for a brief period before it crept back to Tk 56-58 level this week.

A secret agency earlier identified a racket of eight sugar refiners and wholesalers for sugar market manipulation giving the government-fixed rates and repeated warnings the thumbs down. The racket also pocketed taka in hundred crores in foregone revenue as the government withdrew duty on raw sugar to facilitate millers to keep prices lower, the agency report dug out. Returning home from a US tour after Eid, commerce minister blamed a syndicate of sugar refiners and traders for sugar price hike and ordered arrest of the racket members, but he backtracked on his tough stance just in a couple of days later.

Law enforcers last week busted sugar hoarders in Jessore and recovered huge amount of the sweetener from their warehouses, but the accused traders Tuesday obtained bail from the High Court. Market observers said traders and millers became resistant to warnings as those proved hollow and the sugar market was left wide open to manipulators to make windfall and cost consumers heavily in absence of government intervention in the market. Bangladesh consumes around 1.2 million tones of sugar annually. In the past fiscal ended in June, state-owned sugar mills produced only 74,000 tonnes, leaving almost entire sugar market to local refiners which process imported raw sugar.

-New Age