Consumer Rights Association Reports 167% Increase in Food Prices
The National Consumer Rights Protection Association announced in a report on “basic commodity prices” over the past year that the highest price increases were in food items, reaching “167 percent.”
Based on the monitoring and surveillance working group report released on April 1st, the prices of 52 essential and frequently consumed household goods available in the Iranian market across 9 general categories were examined over a twelve-month period ending on April 20th of this year. According to this, some food items showed price increases of up to 167 percent.
In a report released last month by the National Consumer Rights Protection Association, the prices of Tarom rice, Hashemi rice, chickpeas, potatoes, bottled drinking water, and tomato paste experienced price increases of more than 100 percent compared to one year ago.
According to the association’s Monday report, the price of the “protein products” group, including chicken meat, eggs, sheep and cattle meat, and live sheep and cattle, showed increases of up to 53 percent by the end of Farvardin of this year compared to the same period last year.
The Statistical Center of Iran, a government organization, in its latest official report stated the point-to-point inflation rate (change in index compared to the same period last year) for Farvardin in the major group of “food, beverages and tobacco” as 43.4 percent and the group of “non-food goods and services” as 31.3 percent.
The National Consumer Rights Protection Association also noted that over the past year “eggs had led in price increases in the protein products group” and referred to sugar prices “nearly doubling” during the same period.
On the other hand, Abdi Eftekhari, secretary of the Iran Pulses Association, told the “ILNA” news agency on Monday, April 12th, that last year the average price of one kilogram of pulses in Iran was 50 to 75 thousand tomans, and in some of these products “we witnessed price growth of 70 to 120 percent.”
In another section of the National Consumer Rights Protection Association’s report, it stated that the “construction materials group” experienced price increases of 46 percent for gray cement, 24 percent for rebar, 34 percent for white plaster, and 15 percent for beams and black sheets over the past year.
This comes as Ibrahim Raisi and members of his cabinet, since the presidential election campaign period in June 2021 until now, have repeatedly promised to “change the current situation in favor of the people,” “bring inflation to single digits,” and “eliminate absolute poverty.”
Source: Voice of America
