Mohammad Suman

The government yesterday hiked the price of soybean oil for the fourth time this year even though the price of the product in the international market held steady in the past month.

Petroleum imports continue to be the major source of revenue for Custom House, Chattogram thanks to higher tariffs.

The price of wheat in Bangladesh may come down as its export from Ukraine has resumed following an agreement with Russia.

A Chinese company housed in the Chattogram Export Processing Zone imported finished goods with “Made in Bangladesh” labels by declaring those as raw materials, in an incident that violated both local and international rules.

The locomotive driver of the Mahanagar Prabhati train, which hit a microbus on Friday morning killing 11, said he had no time to pull the brakes.

A picnic was organised to boost the morale of a batch of SSC and HSC students, but the smiling faces in the group photo taken yesterday morning will remain a poignant reminder that some of those lives were cruelly cut short mere hours later.

Customs officials seized five containers of liquor imported through false declaration in the last three days.

Customs and law enforcement agencies seized a huge amount of liquor, imported on the false declaration of being machines and yarn, from inside two container trucks at Narayanganj’s Sonargaon upazila in the early hours of yesterday.  

Many areas of Chaktai-Khatunganj, the wholesale essential commodities market in Chattogram, were flooded with tidal water as Chattogram Development Authority (CDA) could not complete the dredging works of the canals and construction works of the sluice gates on time.

Chattogram Customs Bond Commissionerate has suspended the general bond licence of Z&Z Intimates which has recently been accused by customs intelligence of getting an imported Rolls-Royce worth Tk 27 crore released bypassing assessments.  

The customs detectives have seized a Rolls-Royce car worth Tk 27 crore, including import tariff, from a house in Dhaka on allegation of duty evasion and breaching customs rules.

The price of the vehicle was shown as 200,000 US dollar or Tk 1.87 crore in the import document and as an exporter the company had the opportunity to get a duty benefit of Tk 24 crore under the 170 Customs Procedure Code.

Prices of several spices have gone down in the port city’s wholesale and retail markets, due to increased supply ahead of Eid-ul-Azha. 

Rawhide traders are facing a tough time with their business as 21 out of 22 tanneries in Chattogram have been shut down. They are now forced to sell hides at a cheaper rate due to the absence of a competitive market in the port city.

There is a new problem in Bangladesh’s edible oil market but as always, the consumers end up being the sufferers.

Six months before the deadly fire at Sitakunda’s BM Container Depot on June 4, a team of Bangladesh Investment Development Authority visited the depot and found fire hazards like combustible materials kept near electronic machines and absence of a fire hydrant system.

In the last week of May, the Hathazari-based Al-Razi Chemical Complex was warned of the hazards of storing hydrogen peroxide in jerrycans. But the company was not stirred to action.

The government plans to extend VAT exemption and offer tax holiday to all export-oriented goods and services in order to create new export sectors, diversify goods and explore new markets.

The government yesterday increased the price of soybean oil by Tk 5 to Tk 7 per litre, dashing the hopes of the edible oil market in Bangladesh cooling off anytime soon.

The move aims at making ‘Made in Bangladesh’ a global brand.