Cut prices or face exporters

The New Age

The commerce ministry, seeing the continuous increase of the prices of eggs, has wanted to know from all the concerned quarters the local demand for eggs in the city markets in the last couple of months, said official sources.
An inter-ministry meeting on Thursday, presided over by commerce secretary Feroz Ahmed and attended by senior officials of the ministries of fisheries and livestock and food, discussed the high prices of eggs in the local market.
The meeting decided to get information on the actual demand for eggs from the poultry association as well as the concerned government offices.
‘We will withdraw the 16-year-long restriction on egg import if the price of eggs is not reduced by the local producers within a short time,’ said a senior official of the commerce ministry who attended the meeting.
Sources also said that most of the officials at the meeting, however, opposed the idea of withdrawing the restriction on egg import as India was still not free from bird flu. The price of four eggs in the local market, which was Tk 20 a year ago, is now Tk 28, showing an increase of about 30 per cent.
Local poultry farmers and industry operators on Wednesday also opposed any move for allowing import of eggs and said that withdrawal of the restriction would hurt their attempt to recover from the ravages of the recent bouts of bird flu.
The restriction on importing eggs has remained effective since 1993. It was imposed to stop entry of low-priced eggs into the country, which would adversely affect the local poultry industries.