Amid skyrocketing inflation, low and middle income people have been priced out of the egg market even though all need to meet daily nutritional requirements which have traditionally been an affordable source of quality protein for the country’s people.

High costs of egg production have pushed up the item’s prices in the country, which in turn has reduced the purchasing power of consumers. Moreover, egg production and farming activities have witnessed a steady decline over the years, severely disrupting its supply.

Against the backdrop of such crisis, though the official data shows a daily egg production of 6.4 crore, Bangladesh has opened imports of this food item after prices kept rising unusually.

The government has set the price of per egg at Tk 12 and 15 companies have been granted permission to import 15 crore eggs.

Importers claimed that due to high import duties of 33 per cent on eggs, there is a little scope to keep the price at lower. The National Board of Revenue (NBR) officials said that still there is no observation regarding a reduction in import duties.

According to customs tariff, there is 25 per cent customs duty, 5 per cent advance income tax and 3 per cent regulatory duty.

Country’s importers say that import costs will be Tk 10.20 to Tk 10.50 each egg and there is a higher risk in egg wastage during imports. So, it is not possible for them to keep the price at Tk 12.

NBR sources say that the country has never witnessed such egg imports before. This is why there is no barrier or incentives regarding imports such as considering wastage or imposing minimum tariff value.

Letters of credit (LCs) mention that up to 5 per cent of imports of foreign fruits may be lost and it is considered as wastage.

“There is no proposal or observation from importers, the Ministry of Commerce and the NBR chairman to revisit the policy measures in egg imports. So, we have yet to consider duty reduction,” said a NBR official involved with the policy formulation.

“If the ministry concerned, department or importers send proposal in this regard, the NBR will critically assess the issue for further action,” he added.

Commerce Minister Tipu Munshi on Sunday said imported eggs will be available in the current week.

Munshi said this while speaking at the opening of selling 5 subsidised products among one crore family cardholders nationwide for the month of October by Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB) at Dhanmondi in the capital.

Egg production on the decline

Egg production has dropped by 14 per cent in a year, shows a recent survey. Daily egg production in the country was 4.24 crore in January of 2022, which dropped to 3.98 crore in December the same year. Egg production per day dropped to 3.7 crore in August this year.

However, according to the livestock ministry data, Bangladesh produced 2,337.63 crore eggs in FY23, which puts the daily production rate at 6.40 crore. So, during that period, per person egg consumption in the country was 134.58 per year, or 2.58 per week.

Bangladesh produced 607.85 crore eggs in FY11, which then rose to 1,181.24 crore in FY16. At that time, per person egg consumption stood at 75 per year, or 1.44 per week.