Business and Social Sciences
Business and social sciences | Online ISSN 3067-8919
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Volume 4 Number 1 2026
RESEARCH ARTICLE (Open Access)
Commodity Price Inflation in Bangladesh: Drivers, Household Impact, and Policy Responses
Kamruzzaman Mithu 1*
Business and Social Sciences 4 (1) 1-8 https://doi.org/10.25163/business.4110877
Submitted: 17 June 2026 Revised: 08 August 2026 Accepted: 17 August 2026 Published: 19 August 2026
Abstract
Between 2020 and 2022, Bangladesh experienced a sustained rise in the price of essential commodities — rice, edible oil, sugar, lentils, and onions among them — that outpaced both wage growth and, at times, global commodity price trends. This paper undertakes a structured narrative review and secondary-data synthesis, drawing on Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics trade and inflation records, Foreign Trade Statistics, and peer-reviewed and institutional literature on commodity-price volatility, supplemented by contemporaneous news and market reporting. Domestic prices for several staples — wheat flour, lentils, and sugar in particular — rose disproportionately relative to their global benchmarks, a divergence attributable less to global shocks alone than to import dependency, market concentration among wholesalers, and, plausibly, opportunistic pricing behavior. Overall inflation reached 6.17 percent by February 2022, its highest level since October 2020, with edible oil, sugar, and egg prices identified as principal contributors. The evidence suggests that Bangladesh’s commodity price crisis is not reducible to imported inflation; domestic market structure and regulatory gaps appear to compound external shocks, disproportionately burdening low-income and food-insecure households. Targeted market regulation, agricultural investment, and tariff relief are proposed as complementary, near-term policy responses.
Keywords: commodity price inflation; food security; import dependency; cost-of-living crisis; Bangladesh
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