Tonnes of ginger rot at Khatunganj; price falls to Tk15-20 a kg
Prices of garlic and onion also decrease substantially with the end of eid festivity
Khatunganj-based Zarifa Enterprise imported 7 containers of ginger from China on Eid-ul-Azha – a time when demand for spices skyrockets every year – but the trader could sell only two containers of ginger before this eid.
The proprietor of the enterprise Zunaidul Haque is now in great trouble as most of the unsold ginger has perished during the closure of the Eid vacation.
"We now sell ginger at Tk15-20 per kg, for importing which we have spent Tk65. As a result, we are now incurring some Tk67 lakh," he told The Business Standard.
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"I don't know how I would recover from this loss," he expressed frustration.
Zunaidul Haque is one of 250 spice traders in the country's largest wholesale hub for essential commodities, situated in the port city Chattogram. The situation is almost the same for many of them. Apart from ginger, they are also facing a slight loss in garlic.
Talking to The Business Standard, insiders there said they are incurring unprecedented losses due mainly to a fall in demand for spices in flood-hit Sylhet and the northern region and higher import costs of the items than usual.
"The sales of spices were not usual this year. The recent devastating floods in a large portion of the country had a negative impact on the consumption of the items," Md Idris Mia, general-secretary of the traders association of Khatunganj spice hub – Hamidullah Market.
Bad financial conditions of consumers and unstable dollar prices also contributed to the losses, he believes.
Although the damaged ginger sold as low as Tk2-3 per kg, depending on its condition, at different shops of the market on Friday, good quality ginger sold up to Tk70 per kg. Most of the traders were found selling the item at Tk15-20 per kg.
The price of garlic was Tk80-83 per kg, a 10-13% down from the average import costs of Tk95, on the day, according to the traders, while different varieties of onion were selling Tk25-35 per kg.
Onion sold at Tk40-50 per kg before the eid. "The government has allowed import of onion from India, which ultimately helped decrease the price of the essential item," Balay Kumar Poddar, proprietor of Grameen Banijyalay at Khatunganj, told TBS.
About 50,000 tonnes of different types of spices worth Tk600-700 crore are usually imported on the occasion of Eid-ul-Azha every year, according to Chattogram Port. Bangladesh imports all the spices except coriander, its data said.
