Though the prices of major food items remained fairly stable, edible oil and sugar became dearer in the market over this week. [break]
On Tuesday, retailers made consumers pay Rs 135 for a liter of locally produced mustard oil, up from Rs 10 per liter recorded a week ago. Price has increase by Rs 10 per liter in average, according to Siddhi Gorkhali, secretary of Nepal Retailers´ Association.
The price of different brands of mustard oil varies from Rs 125 to 145 per liter,
Likewise, the fresh prices issued by the NRA shows that prices of locally produced soybean oil has jumped to Rs 120 per liter from Rs 110 of a week ago. Sunflower oil that was priced Rs 115 per liter till a week ago is currently selling for Rs 125 per liter in the market.
Wholesalers and retailers attributed the fresh rise in prices to upward revision of customs valuations of raw materials and foreign edible oil brands and also the weakening of Nepali rupee vis-a-vis US dollar. As Nepal largely fulfills the local demand of edible oil through imports of either raw materials -- mustard, sunflower and soybean seeds -- or processed oil products, Gorkhali said the latest devaluation of Nepali rupee impacted the prices immensely.
Likewise, the price of sugar has increased by around Rs 7 per kg. Retailers in different parts of Kathmandu were found selling sugar in a range of Rs 70 to Rs 72 per kg on Tuesday. Sugar was priced between Rs 63 and Rs 65 per kg last week.
"Sugar became dearer mainly because of short supply," said Pavitra Bajracharya, president of NRA. According to him, private manufacturers and traders have currently supplied less volume of sugar in the Kathmandu Valley. "The state-owned National Trading and Salt Trading Corporation too are providing us only a limited quantity of sugar," he told Republica.
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