Shawdesh Desk:

The sudden fall in the price of broiler chicken across the country has exposed the market manipulation by big players in the sector.

The price of broiler chicken had started increasing from the mid-February and reached Tk 230–240 a kilogram from Tk 160–170 in the month.

Despite requests from the government to set a reasonable price of the commodity, big companies had increased the item’s wholesale price to Tk 230 a kg while the retail price had hit Tk 280 a kg in the third week of March.

‘No doubt, it was market manipulation by big companies in the poultry sector. As per the statement of the producers, the production cost of a kg of broiler chicken was Tk 130–140 and they sold the item to wholesalers or dealers at Tk 220–230 a kg,’ said Directorate of National Consumer Rights Protection director general AHM Shafiquzzaman.

He said that the corporate companies in the sector agreed to reduce the wholesale price of broiler chicken to Tk 190 a kilogram on March 23, once the government agencies started collecting information on production cost and market prices.

‘How could the retail price of broiler chicken come down to Tk 200 a kilogram from Tk 280 a kilogram in four to five days? Producers are now selling the item at prices less than Tk 190 a kilogram and they are not incurring loss at reduced prices,’ Shafiquzzaman noted.

The activities of producers and the sharp decline in the price of broiler chicken proved that there was manipulation, he observed.

On March 9, in a meeting with the Directorate of National Consumer Rights Protection in the capital, poultry sector big businesses said that their production cost for a kg of broiler chicken was Tk 130–140 and the companies sold the item to wholesalers or dealers at Tk 190-207 a kg.

Sumon Hawlader, president of the Bangladesh Poultry Industries Association, said that the cost of marginal producers for producing a kg of broiler chicken was Tk 163 and the retail price of the item should not be more than Tk 200 a kg.

In the meeting, he blamed that large companies controlled the market of broiler chicken and eggs and kept the prices high via mobile messages to their representatives across the country.

DNCRP DG Shafiquzzaman in the meeting termed the increased price unreasonable and urged the  companies to cut their excessive profit margin.

Consumers Association of Bangladesh president Ghulam Rahman told New Age that without manipulation there was no ground for increase in the price of broiler chicken to Tk 280 a kg.

The sharp decline in the price of the item proved that manipulators were active on the market, he said.

Ghulam Rahman said that a group of businesses in the poultry sector had been manipulating the market for a few months and they would repeat such manipulation in the future as proper legal action against the dishonest businesses remained absent.

The price of broiler chicken has started decreasing on the market but companies have already plundered a huge amount of money from the pockets of the common people, he pointed out.

As it was a clear act of manipulation by a section of businesses, the Bangladesh Competition Commission would have to play its due role in bringing the dishonest businesses to book, Ghulam Rahman said.

DNCRP DG Shafiquzzaman said that his department had sent a report on the price manipulation of broiler chicken to the commerce ministry.

In its eight-point recommendation, the DNCRP suggested that the competition commission could take action against the manipulators.

Bangladesh Competition Commission chairman Pradip Ranjan Chakraborty said that he had come to know about the recommendations made by the DNCRP in media reports but did not read the recommendations in detail.

‘Moreover, the commission has been facing a quorum crisis as the post of three members remained vacant since February 28,’ he said.

Md Anwarul Haque, organising secretary of the Breeders Association of Bangladesh, however, denied the allegation of manipulation in the broiler chicken price, saying that the price depends on demand and supply.

‘Producers did not gain excessive profit, rather they were forced to increase the price due to the increased price of feed,’ he said.

Anwarul went on to say that the price of broiler chicken abnormally decreased in three-to-four days as wholesalers were not willing to buy the item due to various pressures from government agencies.

He claimed that producers were selling the item at Tk 160 a kg due to the decreased demand and they were incurring huge losses.

However, the Bangladesh Poultry Association has recently said that big poultry farms made Tk 936 crore in extra profit through syndication over the span of 52 days.

They made an extra Tk 624 crore by selling broiler chickens and another extra Tk 312 crore by selling chicks between January 31 and March 23, according to a press release from the association on Thursday.

Bangladesh Poultry Industries Association president Sumon Hawlader on Tuesday told New Age that the big companies started decreasing poultry prices as marginal producers started producing of the item.