The governor made the statement during the inauguration of a Welcome Ramadan exhibition in Nasr City’s Seventh District.
The outlets are witnessing high turnout as they offer commodities at discounted prices such as rice, oil, sugar, flour, pasta, meat, poultry, fish, vegetables, and fruit, he noted.
The Egyptian capital has currently over 2,600 fixed and mobile outlets, 400 of which are newly opened, Abdel-Aal added.
The exhibitions are part of the state’s efforts to expand the establishment of outlets in different governorates to ensure the needs of citizens are met and to alleviate their economic burden, Supply Minister Ali Moselhi said. The outlets are especially concentrated in popular neighbourhoods with high population densities and the most needy villages.
The inauguration of the Nasr City outlet took place nearly one month ahead of the holy month of Ramadan, which typically witnesses an increase in the rate of consumption of food products.
A fortnight ago, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi stated that the country is committed to providing strategic goods despite the hard economic conditions and high costs, ordering the allocation of $1.8 billion to support the reserves of basic commodities.
On the same day, during the opening ceremony of the second stage of the Silo Foods Industries City in Sadat City in Menoufiya governorate, Moselhi stated that cooking oil reserves are sufficient for 4.9 months, wheat reserves for 4.5 months, sugar for 3.5 months, and rice for three months.
Rice has begun to reappear on retailers’ shelves over the past couple of days after the suspension of the price cap introduced on the commodity in September, which had led to a shortage in supply.
Regarding the reserves of livestock, Moselhi said they are enough for six months, and that Egypt is self-sufficient in terms of chicken.
Egypt’s inflation has been on the rise since the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian war in February 2022. As of January, the country’s currency had majorly devaluated three times since the conflict.
This has caused an increase in the prices of basic commodities with Egypt's annual headline inflation rising to 26.5 percent in January.
Prices of food and beverages increased by 48.1 percent from January 2022 to January 2023, causing a strain on the population as well as attempts of monopolisation of commodities like rice by some traders in the past few months.
Governorate bodies launched campaigns to crack down on commercial fraud, price manipulation, as well as attempts by merchants to monopolise basic commodities, the governor asserted, adding that deterrent legal measures were taken against violators.
Abdel-Aal emphasised that the campaigns also aim to follow up on sellers' commitment to placing commodity price lists where they can be clearly seen, and stating prices on food products in the outlets for each commodity separately.
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