Bangladesh: Government to add mustard oil to TCB’s list

The government is planning to include mustard oil in its list of essential commodities that TCB would sell at subsidized prices among the 10 million low-income families. The Ministry of Agriculture estimated it to help save foreign currency equivalent to around Tk10,000 crore annually. The Ministry of Agriculture has recently requested the Ministry of Commerce to include edible oil in the list of Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB) that operates the sales drive of key essentials across the country. The Ministry of Agriculture has now been implementing a three-year (FY 2022-25) work plan aiming to achieve self-sufficiency in producing edible oil and reduce the import dependency by around 40%. The country, however, produced over 811,000 tonnes of edible oil so far in the current FY23, which was more than the year's target of 719,000 tonnes, according to Ministry of Agriculture figures. The ministry expected that the government would take necessary steps to implement the work ...