Shortage of ghee, cooking oil looms

With rising prices of wheat flour and chicken already hitting most household budgets, two more staples — ghee and cooking oil — are also going to be short in supply as well as costlier ahead of the holy month of Ramazan if corrective measures are not taken immediately, it emerged on Thursday. Producers are fast running out of palm oil, soybean oil and sunflower following banks’ reluctance in opening the letters of credit (LCs) and retiring documents for clearance of goods despite the fact that these raw materials were listed as essential items by the State Bank on Dec 27, 2022. Lifting of 358,000 tonnes of edible oil from the Customs Bonded Warehouses has been suspended as banks are turning down requests for opening of LCs and retirement of documents. The State Bank has been infor­med that commercial banks have conveyed to importers-cum-manufacturers that edible oil has been excluded from its list of ‘Essential Items’ with immediate effect.