Bangladesh has the highest expenditure on food against the lowest income

  • Special Correspondent, Barta24.com, Dhaka
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CPD

CPD

Sri Lanka's per capita income is 68.76 percent higher than Bangladesh's, but the country's per capita food expenditure is only 63.64 percent of Bangladesh's. India's average per capita income of 9.79% on food is only 53.79% of Bangladesh's.

Research institute Center for Policy Dialogue (CPD) believes that despite relatively low income, Bangladesh has to spend unusually high on food due to inefficiency in market management, absence of competition in the market, and excessive profit tendency of traders.

বিজ্ঞাপন

On Sunday (June 2) research director of the organization Golam Moazzem said in a press briefing that 105 taka liter soybean oil is being sold at 163 taka in the country. In the European market, the price of sugar is 39 taka per kg and is being sold at 130 taka in the country. He thinks that the price of various products including beef is much higher than other countries in the country's market.

CPD organized a media briefing titled 'Economic Status of Bangladesh in the financial year 2023-24' to highlight the latest picture of the country's economy. Apart from Research Director, Research Fellow Muntasir Kamal and other researchers spoke at the event organized in the organization's own office.

বিজ্ঞাপন

In the event, Golam Moazzem said that the people of Bangladesh have to live by buying everyday products at high prices despite their low income. He also commented that due to the trend of increasing prices, many everyday products have become a kind of luxury product.

Commenting that the government does not have enough initiatives to control inflation, he said that all the initiatives that are announced at various times are not implemented.

He said there is a weakness in market management. The Competition Commission has weaknesses. Some clauses of the Competition Act must also be changed. To deal with the pressure of inflation, Moazzem suggested increasing the government's support for poor people and reducing the tariff of daily commodities in some cases.

He said that many times the tariff of some products is reduced but consumers do not get the benefits. As the number of importers is very small, it depends on their margin to reduce the price of the product.

He also said that once there was a structure of 5-6 percent inflation, the country has now moved to a structure of 9-10 percent inflation.

Commenting that inflation is higher in Bangladesh than Sri Lanka, he said that not being able to control this inflation is a big failure of the government.

At the news briefing, Moazzem presented a comparative picture of 16 countries' per capita national income and expenditure per person on food in one year.

According to the list, Bangladesh has the lowest per capita income among 16 countries including Jordan, Morocco, Bolivia, Uzbekistan, Laos, Indonesia, India, Tunisia, Vietnam and Sri Lanka. But in terms of expenditure in a year, a citizen has to spend the most in Bangladesh.