Bangladesh importing 50,000 MT onions by cargo planes: Minister

In the wake of wildly price hike of onions Bangladesh is importing 50,000 metric tons of the essential cooking ingredient by cargo planes.

“The government has started increasing the supply of onion in local market through raising its import by air and sea,” Commerce Minister Tipu Munshi on Tuesday told this at a press conference at the secretariat.

He said around 12,000 MT onion started reaching the country through the sea, state-run Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha news agency report said.

From the Egyptian capital of Cairo, the first consignment of onion by a Saudi Arabian Airlines flight will reach Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport via Jeddah at midnight on November 20, he said.

Then the onion will continuously to come to the capital everyday through the passenger and cargo planes, he said, adding the imported onion would be sold at fair prices through the state-run Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB).

TCB will sell the onion through the vehicles and their appointed dealers, Munshi said.

The government has begun importing onion from Egypt and Turkey as an alternative way as India suspended the export of the bulb and Myanmar raised minimum export price (MEP).

The onion import by the sea is time consuming, so the government is importing the daily cooking ingredient through the cargo planes, said the minister.

To curb onion import dependency, Tipu Munshi said special steps have been taken to fulfill the country’s annual onion demand by increasing its production from the next season.

“The government has taken special projects for preservation of onion so that it becomes available round-the-year, the minister noted.

The country annually needs to import 8-10 lakh MT of onion where most of the onions are being imported from India.

Commerce Secretary Dr M Jafar Uddin was present at the press conference.

Kamruzzaman