In recent months, members of the Algerian government have taken turns speaking to reassure Algerian consumers in the face of soaring prices. Food, the main household expenditure item according to the survey by the National Statistics Office (ONS), is experiencing price increases.
Food prices in Algeria have increased considerably since early 2022, as the country struggles to finance imports to cope with an acute shortage of basic necessities. Algerians start this month in difficulty, that is to say by paying more for basic expenses. Consumers have noticed a rise in prices, more or less important, since the beginning of January, an increase under the sign of shortage and inflation. Indeed, after the high price of chicken, the shortage of subsidized bagged milk, and edible oil, the hot potato from the potato, considered in Algeria, along with semolina, as one of the main foodstuffs. The bread crisis is looming on the horizon with the unilateral decision of the bakers to increase the price.
Bread is the most consumed product in Algeria and what is more, is sold most of the time outside the official circuits, there is something to be dismaying for the consumer and the baker’s basket. It is all the more surprising for the latter that Algeria, within the framework of the 2022 finance law, published in the Official Journal, has committed to lifting generalized state subsidies on primary products. need. The Algerian regime, in fact, fears the consequences.
The increase in taxes and the depreciation of the Algerian currency automatically lead to an increase in prices, deplore representatives of associations for the defense of consumers and Algerian traders. Previously, the president of the National Association of Traders and Craftsmen (ANCA). “The devaluation of the dinar considerably affects products produced abroad,” he said.
The surge in consumer product prices is not just cyclical instability in Algeria. It is an open secret, it becomes problematic and stressful for a very large fringe of low-income Algerians, to obtain enough to ensure the minimum subsistence level for their families with regard to the prices of essential basic food products each time. Time, the day that God makes climb without any consideration, thus striking full force a good part of the population which sees consequently its purchasing power eroded.
For the Algerians who live only on their wages (or meager incomes), stagnant moreover for more than a decade, the days which come with this general surge in prices (from 50% to 100% or more) which risks to ‘igniting the social front will be quite simply dramatic. When of course they are not already, in view of the unaffordable prices of a panoply of essential products and which give the measure of the extent of the present and future damage by a surge destined to continue and to amplify. Nothing escapes it, bread (50%), chicken (50 to 60%), eggs, subsidized milk, oil, and the same for starchy foods (dry white beans, chickpeas, lentils, rice…
On the fruit and vegetable side, the price hike is even more spectacular in this last month of the year. In Algeria, the prices of foodstuffs, whether imported or not, have undergone increases ranging from 30 to 50% at least, which corresponds to no other logic than that of speculation which seems to be galloping due to the political crisis and the lack of control.
Wanting falsely reassuring about the macroeconomic situation of the country, President Tebboune constantly rejects recourse to external financing, in the name of national “sovereignty”. Foreign exchange reserves, which currently stand at 44 billion dollars (37.367 billion euros) against 53 billion dollars (45 billion euros) at the end of 2019, are a major source of concern for economists. They nevertheless continue to decline steadily. Between 2014 and 2019, they fell by nearly 65%, according to the Central Bank.
At the beginning of November, it was reported, in Algeria, to resort to an importation on an exceptional basis given the urgency of the issue of soaring prices and in particular consumer products including white meats.
Some popular layers, more conciliatory, attribute these increases to fluctuations in world markets for inputs and raw materials, and to the cost of agricultural products to justify or argue for these vertiginous increases. However, there is no proportionality between these price increases and the advertised costs. “Illegal commercial maneuvers are taking place in Algeria due to a monopoly situation of certain importers. They speculate prices are soaring as a result,” regretted the president of the ANCA.
