{"id":3215,"date":"2015-12-15T19:27:32","date_gmt":"2015-12-15T19:27:32","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2019-02-20T00:10:21","modified_gmt":"2019-02-19T22:10:21","slug":"lebanon-traders-accused-of-over-inflating-food-prices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jassemajaka.com\/?p=3215","title":{"rendered":"Lebanon: Traders accused of over-inflating food prices"},"content":{"rendered":"

Consumer and labor groups say they have observed a surge in food prices before the beginning of Ramadan, claiming that the prices of some goods have doubled.<\/span><\/p>\n

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But the claims were dismissed by the Economy Ministry, which called them arbitrary and inaccurate.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThese statements are false and we all know that the Lebanese market is full of food products because of the great drop in exports caused by the closure of land routes following the Syrian crisis,\u201d said Jassem Ajaka, economics affairs adviser to the economy minister.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSo there is no way to witness a surge in prices because we have all kinds of products in the market and at large quantities,\u201d he added.<\/span><\/p>\n

The holy month of Ramadan, which began Thursday, is a time when Lebanese food markets normally witness major price hikes because consumers tend to buy food in larger quantities.<\/span><\/p>\n

Consumer groups suspect that food importers inflate prices to boost their profits while manipulating food supplies.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe started monitoring prices two weeks prior toRamadan and we focused mostly on fruits, vegetables and meat,\u201d said Zouhair Berro, president of the Lebanese Consumers Association. \u201cWe found that chicken prices have increased by 28 percent while prices of vegetables have gone up by between 50 percent and 100 percent,\u201d he added.<\/span><\/p>\n

Berro argued that despite the high availability of all kinds of food products in the market, merchants were increasing their prices to compensate for their lack of exports. \u201cMerchants cannot export their products as they used to do before, so they tend to increase their prices to make up for their losses,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lebanese food exports have witnessed a major downturn over the past few months due to the closure of the Nassib border crossing betweenJordan and Syria.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nassib was the last functioning crossing between Jordan and Syria, and was vital for the transportation of goods from Lebanon and Syria\u00a0 to Jordan and the Gulf states.<\/span><\/p>\n

Berro said that he attended a meeting at theEconomy Ministry aimed at discussing with merchants the need to keep prices under control during Ramadan.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBut the meeting turned into a nagging session whereby merchants started complaining about their situation following the closure of Nassib border crossing and the drop in their exports,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMerchants claimed that they would not increase prices at all, but I believe that this is not the case,\u201d he said. \u201cPrices have increased because of a lack of proper control by the Economy Ministry.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

TheGeneral Labor Confederation issued a statement Thursday saying that food prices have increased and merchants were taking advantage of Ramadan to increase their profits.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe call upon the Economy Ministry to take the necessary measures to prevent the hike in prices, especially now that the Lebanese market has an excess quantity of food products,\u201d it said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Berro said that one of the reasons behind the increase in prices is the reluctance of the Economy Ministry to control the total profits of wholesalers, distributers and retailers, which should not exceed 30 percent. \u201cUnfortunately, their profits today exceed 100 percent,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

He also attributed the increase in prices to the absence of competition law, which would prevent monopolies. \u201cMonopoly exists in all sectors and that\u2019s what causes high prices in Lebanon compared to the rest of the region,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt is impossible not to be able to find a certain food product in the market nowadays, so if I ask about an item in any shop and I do not find it, then I will automatically accuse the merchant of being a monopolizer,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ajaka dismissed Berro\u2019s comments. \u201cWhy does he always criticize our work while he never sends any complaints to the Economy Ministry?\u201d he asked. \u201cIf his accusations are real, then let him send complaints and the Economy Ministry will solve them,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ajaka added that the Economy Ministry has 100 inspectors deployed in areas where most people fast, such as in Beirut\u2019s southern suburbs and Cola.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe ordered them to focus mostly on monitoring prices of food products this month,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe also have a strategy whereby we do not inform inspectors about the areas they should visit ahead of time, so we can avoid any conspiracies between them and merchants,\u201d he added.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Source: Albawaba<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

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Consumer and labor groups say they have observed a surge in food prices before the beginning of Ramadan, claiming that the prices of some goods have doubled. \u00a0 But the claims were dismissed by the Economy Ministry, which called them arbitrary and inaccurate. \u201cThese statements are false and we all know that the Lebanese market […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":3216,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[101,100,773,98],"class_list":["post-3215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1","tag-101","tag-100","tag-773","tag-interviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.jassemajaka.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/8c33b7_44c2b766521d4456a6412f22d6f9ca66.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paTyQg-PR","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jassemajaka.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jassemajaka.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jassemajaka.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jassemajaka.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jassemajaka.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3215"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.jassemajaka.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3215\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9272,"href":"https:\/\/www.jassemajaka.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3215\/revisions\/9272"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jassemajaka.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jassemajaka.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jassemajaka.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jassemajaka.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}