Mohammad Alim Akhtar Khan, the director general of the Directorate of National Consumer Rights Protection (Grade-1), said that there will be no product crisis in the country during Ramadan.
However, the concern remains whether prices will increase despite no crisis.
He emphasized that with the resources available, efforts would always be made to ensure consumers pay a fair price.
He made these remarks while addressing the divisional consumer rights protection conference organized by the Consumer Association of Bangladesh (CAB) at the Rajshahi Deputy Commissioner's office at 12:30pm on Sunday.
Alim Akhtar Khan mentioned that recently, the two main concerns regarding prices were onions and potatoes.
He explained that the Agriculture Marketing Department had set the price of potatoes in cold storage at Tk27 and after adding costs such as cold storage rent and transportation, a price of Tk40 per kg was deemed reasonable.
The Agriculture Marketing Department later increased the price to a maximum of Tk45 per kg, and they had been trying to sell at that price.
He further added that in places like Rangpur, the cold storage was selling potatoes at Tk45 per kg and similar actions were being taken by the UNO (Upazila Nirbahi Officer) in Paba, Rajshahi.
There are 40 cold storages in Rajshahi, but only one upazila managed to sell potatoes at this price, which he said could not be considered as uniform for the whole region.
He also highlighted that the traditional approach to price control had not yet changed completely.
The director general said: "The old practices in controlling prices have not been completely changed. Last month, I visited Sonamasjid in Chapainawabganj (land port). There, I observed that one-third of the imported onions were spoiled."
However, they had to buy those onions to maintain the perceived onion crisis. As a result, despite 30% spoilage, the price was set at 100 taka per kg, making it impossible to reduce the price.
Some of the onions were almost wet, which was unacceptable to the public.
Alim Akhtar Khan further said that prices for other goods were rising, but the Ministry of Commerce had reduced duties on items like chickpeas, sugar, cooking oil and dates in preparation for Ramadan.
Some items had almost zero duties and many importers were opening letters of credit (LCs) to bring in products.
He reassured that there would be no product crisis during Ramadan, but the key concern remains whether prices will rise.
He emphasized that if everything proceeds correctly, they are hopeful there will be no crisis.
He also urged the Consumer Rights Protection Directorate members to stay vigilant and ensure that the price of meat remains reasonable.
