After a hiatus of two years, the government has asked the BSFIC, the lone sugar producer in the country, to import 1 lakh metric ton (MT) of sugar to bridle price hike.

But corporation sources feared that the decision to import sugar through the public sector is unlikely to succeed in keeping prices under control due to strict clauses in the Bangladesh Public Procurement Regulations, 2003, prescribed by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

The new public procurement regulations stipulate keeping international tender open for 42 days as against the previous 14 days. As such, the first consignment of sugar is unlikely to land at Chittagong port before August due to the long tender process.

The total duty of 103.35 percent is also likely to affect price, said the sources.

In this backdrop, the corporation wrote to the Ministry of Industries to make state to state arrangement for import of sugar to shorten the delivery time to only two weeks.

BSFIC's stock of sugar will be exhausted at the end of this month, the official said, adding some 75,000 MT of sugar is now in the private sector, which is not enough to meet market demand.

He said private sector importers are trying to manipulate the market after sensing the looming shortage of government stock. The per kg retail price shot up by Tk 4 yesterday.