Prime Minister Mustafa Madbouli has designated seven food products as strategic commodities — mixed oil, fava beans, rice, milk, sugar, pasta, and white cheese — in a bid to prevent their stockpiling for the next six months and control prices.
According to the directive, in line with Article 8 of Consumer Protection Law 181/2018, producers, suppliers, distributors, and sellers of the products are mandated to inform supply directorates nationwide about the kinds and quantities of stored goods.
Violations will result in penalties outlined in Article 71 of the Consumer Protection Law.
“This decision will curb price manipulation, prevent hoarding, and discourage monopolistic practices that distort the market. These commodities are all vital household staples, and the move is expected to safeguard their availability and affordability for Egyptian households,” said Mohamed Attia Al-Fayoumi, president of the Qalioubiya Chamber of Commerce and secretary of the Federation of Chambers of Commerce.
Madbouli’s decision will prevent hoarding and arbitrary pricing and lead to a significant recovery in the supply of goods, rebalancing the relationship between supply and demand and leading to a decline in prices, Al-Fayoumi said.
The prime minister also issued another directive to establish a permanent technical secretariat for the committee tasked with studying mechanisms to control the markets and commodity prices.
The committee will be led by the cabinet’s Information and Decision Support Centre, with a membership including representatives from the ministries of supply, planning, agriculture, and trade and industry, the Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics (CAPMAS), the Consumer Protection Agency, and the Competition Protection and Prevention of Monopolistic Practices Authority.
The committee’s tasks encompass market control, the periodic monitoring of production, consumption, and import quantities of designated strategic commodities, the allocation of indicators to verify fair consumer prices, and the digitisation of trading and selling operations from production to consumer sale.
It will study notifications of price changes, examine documents submitted by companies, coordinate with the regulatory authorities overseeing the markets, and ensure companies record the maximum sales price of their products to consumers.
Hazem Al-Menoufi, a member of the General Division for Foodstuffs at the Federation of Chambers of Commerce, said the decisions do not contradict the principles of a free economy founded on the freedom of supply and demand.
They do not enforce obligatory pricing but rather affirm the importance of properly displaying the sales prices of commodities, he added.
Determining the sales prices helps to control the prices of goods and prevents producers from hoarding, with visible prices acting as a deterrent against market manipulation. Tracking production volumes aids in assessing whether goods are being stored, Al-Menoufi said.
Madbouli’s decisions are not applicable to unpackaged goods, such as unpackaged milk or cheese, and only pertain to manufactured and packaged goods.
Hassan Al-Fendi, head of the Sugar Division at the Federation of Egyptian Industries, said he doubted the effectiveness of the decisions in influencing the market.
He said that the laws of supply and demand determine the availability of goods in the marketplace, and this can only be achieved by addressing factors such as the availability of the dollar, raw materials, and production inputs.
Al-Fendi questioned why issues of high commodity prices and scarcity had only surfaced in 2023 and not earlier. He attributed this to the shortage of foreign currency and conflicting decisions taken by the Central Bank of Egypt regarding imports that had affected production volumes and created an uncertain environment not conducive to sustaining production.
He said that producers bear the additional costs of storing raw materials and production inputs in the ports for months until they can get the dollars needed to complete the necessary papers for the goods to be released.
The decisions are the result of cabinet meetings with the Federation of Egyptian Industries, the Federation of Chambers of Commerce, and factory owners, Madbouli said. The prices of several commodities were agreed upon at these meetings, he added.
The government does not set the prices of commodities, the prime minister said, but it is concerned that prices are regulated and that commodities are displayed at reasonable prices.
An agreement was also reached with the owners of factories producing the seven commodities for a monthly pricing review. Any price increases must be made in collaboration with the government if circumstances necessitate such adjustments, Madbouli stressed.
The new decisions mandate that production and import companies must issue sales tax invoices incorporating the factory selling price and the end price. Additionally, the final sales price must be clearly displayed on products at all points of sale, with the price also prominently displayed on shelves to promote consumer awareness.
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