Minister of Trade
By Buba Gagigo
The Ministry of Trade, Industry, Regional Integration and Employment has blamed the recent increase in the cost of basic commodities on foreign and local factors, citing covid-19 as the underlying factor.
“These increments were caused by both the exogenous (external cause or origin) and some local factors. Exogenously, the general increase in prices particularly for rice and edible oil is a global phenomenon as a result of the COVID 19 Pandemic. These products are mainly from South East Asia such as China, Malaysia, Pakistan and Thailand, some of whom have imposed export restrictions. This has resulted to reduced -supply of these aforementioned commodities and thus the resultant price increase,” according to the release received by Kerr Fatou.
The ministry claimed that internationally, prices of commodities have been surging from April 2020 to date; due to the impact of Covid-19 on regional and global supply chains.
Recently, vendors and customers alike have cried out to Kerr Fatou what they described as the rapid surge in the cost of basic commodities such as meat, fish, onion, sugar, rice etc. However, this reaction by the trade ministry offered no solutions to the concern of those customers and vendors.
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