Price hike of petroleum fuels in Bangladesh has aroused growing concerns over misery of common people and adverse impact on economy while different organizations demanded the government to cancel the price hike decision.
Stories related to fuel price hike have been made headlines in most local newspapers in the last few days following the government 's decision on Monday to increase prices of all petroleum products by 33 percent to 67 percent.
Economists said the fuel price rise will push up inflation rate and worsen misery of common people, especially the low-income people, who have already suffered a lot from the soaring prices of essentials.
They said the fuel price rise will definitely increase transportation cost of food commodities, resulting in the increase of the food price.
Besides, the production cost of rice, the staple in Bangladesh, will also be increased as 90 percent of over 1 million water pumps for paddy irrigation in the country are diesel driven.
What economists worried about seems to become true much earlier than expected as prices of almost all commodities including rice and edible oil shot up across the country following the latest fuel price hike, according to local media reports.
A local think tank Shamunnay Tuesday in a report said the increased price of diesel and kerosene (by 37.5 percent) will lead to more inflation and create 400,000 new poor people in the country.
Meanwhile, many people are living amid fear of losing jobs as industries will suffer a heavy blow because of the fuel price like.
The country's garment manufacturers said many ready-made garment factories will be shutdown gradually if the government doesn't reduce the fuel prices.
Bangladesh Garments Manufacturers and Exporters Association Wednesday said the production cost of the exportable apparel items will go up by at least 15 percent due to the fuel price adjustment.
The ready-made garment sector accounts for nearly 76 percent of the country's total export earning.
Around 2,800 garment factories in the country have to pay additional tens of millions of U.S. dollars for transportation cost of consignments and use of diesel-run generators due to insufficient supply of electricity, they said.
In past few days, different political parties and organizations including two major parties, Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Awami League, have protested the fuel price hike and urged the government to withdraw the decision.
Communist Party of Bangladesh declared a countrywide protest and demonstration program against the fuel price hike on July 9.
The authorities said the government had no alternative but to raise the prices to reduce government subsidies on importing fuel as the oil prices on international market is soaring.
The price of per barrel crude petroleum on the international market rose from 60 U.S. dollars to near 144 U.S. dollars since last fuel price adjustment in Bangladesh in April last year.
The impoverished South Asian country has limited coal and natural gas reserve and its gas supply is short of demand. It imports most petroleum products, about 3.7 million tons annually.
Source:Xinhua
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