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Tuesday, 15 March 2022

Food prices were still the topic du jour on the airwaves last night

The Sisi administration’s bid to tamp down rising food prices dominated the airwaves last night after Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly set up a committee to look into measures to limit the rise in price of strategic commodities. Committee members will meet weekly to stay on top of the economic situation, said Kelma Akhira’s Lamis El Hadidi (watch, runtime 1:05). We have more on the story in this morning’s Commodities section, above.

But what about fuel prices? Cabinet spokesperson Nader Saad declined to comment on whether the government would move to raise fuel prices next month, telling Lamis that any oil-related decisions are made by the independent fuel pricing committee (watch, runtime 1:06).

We’d wager quite a few Enterprise mugs that fuel prices won’t be the same come April, at least if oil prices remain in the three-figure range — and at the rate things are going, there’s no guarantee that they will be (again, more on this above). The government has hiked fuel prices by 12-16% over the past year as international oil benchmarks have risen.

CORRECTION- In yesterday’s Talk Shows section, we wrote that the cabinet is considering supplying reduced amounts of flour to bakeries to combat stockpiling and inflating prices. The government in fact held talks with industry players, where the suggestion was made that bakeries could be required to sell unsubsidized bread by weight rather than pricing per loaf, to ensure that they aren’t skimping on loaf size. The story has been updated on our website.

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