He came up with the information while talking to reporters at the Secretariat at noon.
The minister blamed difficulties in the loading process for the delay in the arrival of the onion shipment.
He said the government started importing the cooking ingredient by air and ships as part of a special initiative to cool down the overheated onion market.
“A total of 50,000 metric tonnes of onion are being imported by air,” Tipu Munshi said, adding that the first consignment from Egypt is on its way to Dhaka by a cargo plane of Saudi Airlines.
The plane will land at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport on Wednesday midnight, he said, adding that other consignments will come on a regular basis.
The minister said the imported onion will be sold at a fair price through the Trading Corporation of Bangladesh.
Around 12,000 metric tonnes of onion are entering the country through sea routes while locally grown variety started to hit the market, he said, hoping that the onion price will decline rapidly.
Tipu Munshi ruled out the possibility of any hike in edible salt’s price, saying a total of 6 lakh metric tonnes of salt are currently in stock.
Blaming dishonest traders for the current turmoil in the salt market, he urged the Directorate of National Consumer Rights Protection to take action against those responsible through proper monitoring.