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samuel
Joined: 25 Apr 2007
Posts: 78
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 Posted: Fri Apr 04, 2008 10:34 pm Post subject: Range of action by government to offset commodity crises |
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Very usefull article here!
| Quote: | In response to increasing food prices, Egypt has widened its food rationing system for the first time in two decades while Pakistan has reintroduced a ration card system that was abandoned in the mid-1980s; Oman has also introduced food subsidies. Countries such as China and Russia are imposing price controls while others, such as Argentina and Vietnam, are enforcing foreign sales taxes or export bans. Cereal importing countries are lowering their tariffs.
The worlds largest importer of wheat is Egypt; currently the government cannot raise the prices of subsidised food, so every increase [in international prices] is absorbed by the state. The bread subsidy alone went up by around $ 820 million last year to reach $ 2.45 billion. Food price inflation has forced the Egyptian government for the first time in 20 years to relax the rules about who can receive subsidised food. As a result, officials say they expect an additional 10.5m people to be added to the list.
Pakistan recently launched ration cards to provide subsidised food for nearly 7million households after the price of wheat and edible oils, key staples in the country, soared. Food ration cards in Pakistan were mostly abandoned in the 1980s. Thousands of paramilitary troops have been deployed since January to guard trucks carrying wheat and flour.
Malaysia, trying to keep its commodities at home, has made it a crime to export flour and other products without a license. Russia, is implementing price controls on selected types of bread, cheese, milk, eggs and vegetable oil.
Income transfers or food assistance for poor people will work more efficiently and sustainably than more general steps such as price controls and other direct measures at the national level.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation has called on the oil-producing countries of the Middle East to invest more of their oil windfalls in developing agriculture in their region, in order to address the serious threat to food security posed by water scarcity and climate change.
In the meantime, governments that are subsidising biofuels need to come up and help fund the World Food Programme.
http://talesfromabyssinia.blogspot.com/2008/03/food-fight-ever-wondered-why-prices-are.html |
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