The commerce ministry is in the dark on the country’s onion production and demand as two government agencies have given different figures in the wake of the skyrocketing price of the item, officials said.
“We cannot finalise the demand and production of onion because there is this big difference of 700,000 tonnes between what agriculture ministry and Bangladesh Bureau of statistics says,” said a senior official of the commerce ministry.
The official also said without knowing the actual production of onion in the country, the commerce ministry would not be able to determine how much onion will need to be imported in future as the price of onion sells at below 80 per kg in the local kitchen market.
The prices of onion increased by 43% in the past three days in the local markets because of the price in international markets rising to $650 per tonne on Wednesday.
Commerce Secretary Mahbub Ahmed told at a press conference on Sunday they had no choice but to rely on figures provided by the two government agencies and according to the estimation of the agriculture ministry total production of onion was 1.914m tonnes while demand was 2m tonnes.
