IRAQ: Food prices rise after monthly rations are cut

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/70d87bb34defdec8eb971bfc2186d597.htm

BAGHDAD, 2 April (IRIN) - The price of some staple food has increased in Iraq after the Ministry of Trade announced last week that several items provided by a monthly food-ration programme would be cancelled. This prompted shopkeepers to raise the cost of items which are being imported at a high price.

"Many products offered for years by the monthly food-ration programme have been taken out," said Omar Abdel Kareem, an economist at Baghdad University. "Consequently, prices have risen".

Some products have seen their prices increase by as much as 300 percent or more. In 2002, lentil beans were sold for about US $0.50 per kilogramme. Since then, the retail price has jumped to around US $2 per kilogramme.

According to officials at the trade ministry, which is largely responsible for food distribution, the cut in rations is a direct result of a 25-percent, government-imposed reduction of the annual budget. In an effort to curtail state spending on subsidies and develop a free market economy, the national budget was reduced from US $4 billion to US $3 billion for the current fiscal year. snip

Families have relied on government-subsidised ration programmes ever since the application of United Nations-imposed sanctions on Iraq in 1991. Nearly 26.5 million of the country's 28 million people depend on monthly food rations, according to trade ministry figures.

[Blaze Diem]

1. Iraqis now enjoying the same corporate owned democracy as

..America.
George's war was a success, I guess,
for the new "corporate world order" , anyway.

[whathappened]

2. hello

jr. has now all by himself brought hunger and disaster to all free world people of this planet , he says now get off your asses and go and find a job you sob , and build a new hut to keep the sun off you , and by the way , we will be back to bomb your little hut if you rebuild