The price of bread in Lebanon doubled in one year

The effects of the economic crisis in Lebanon and the depreciation of the Lebanese pound continue to affect the most important food and consumer goods, the last of which was the increase in the price of a wad of bread by 500 pounds, until it was increased its price became 100 percent in less than a year.
And in the third increase in bread since last June, the Ministry of Economy announced the day before yesterday that it had raised the price of a wad of bread to 3,000 Lebanese pounds (two dollars at the official exchange rate and 25 cents on the dollar). exchange rate on the black market), after its price was 1,500 lira in the past year (one dollar at the official exchange rate).
The Ministry of Economy attributed this increase to the high exchange rate of the dollar and its reflection in the prices of raw materials that go into the production of bundles of bread and based on the price of wheat in the world stock market, the price of fuel, and avoid stopping bread package production and damaging food safety. Consequently, the price of a package of Lebanese (white) bread, the large size, weighing 960 grams, was set at 3,000 Lebanese pounds, and those weighing 445 grams at 2,000 Lebanese pounds, after the ministry raised the price of a package of bread from 2000 to 2500 pounds in February. last.
Yesterday morning, the Ministry of Energy and Water announced an increase in the price of a gasoline plate by 400 pounds, so that the price of a 95 octane plate went to 39,300 pounds and a price of 98 octane to 40,400 pounds .
This increase is in addition to rising food and meat prices. In early March, the price of beef rose, reaching a 110 percent increase in one year, and the price of chicken by 65 percent, according to the World Bank.
These increases affecting various food and consumer items come in light of a serious economic crisis in Lebanon, which has reflected a collapse in the value of the local currency against the dollar, and while the official exchange rate of the Lebanese pound against the dollar is still holding. set at 1507 pounds to the dollar, the price of green currency on the black market last week The past threshold of 15 thousand pounds, or ten times the official price, before it fell this week to about 11 thousand pounds, which took to a The increase in the poverty rate will affect more than half of the Lebanese population according to the United Nations, while the annual inflation rate in Lebanon reached at the end of the year the last 145.8 percent, according to official statistics.
This economic situation was the focus of yesterday’s meeting at the headquarters of the Workers’ Union, where the productive forces launched a joint “cry” in an extended meeting that brought together the economic bodies headed by former Minister Mohamed Choucair, and the General Union of Workers that Bechara Al Asmar.
Al-Asmar warned that “food security and health security in the unknown and the exchange rate of the pound have become the knowledge of the invisible, in which the politician and the economy have been mixed, and wages have become have evaporated, the guarantor bodies are threatened with their existence, and security is almost lost by the fragments that afflict the army and the internal security forces of the fragments of the prolonged economic crisis. “
Choucair described the Lebanese crisis as “calamity and calamity”, explaining that “the International Monetary Fund’s announcement that Lebanese national income decreased by around $ 56 billion in 2019 to around $ 18 billion in 2020, which it means that Lebanon lost two thirds of its economy and income in one year, it also lost its institutions, its workers and its standard of living, and it also means that returning to what we were economic, social and living requires many years.
And he warned that “despite the harsh scenes of the suffering of the Lebanese, this tragedy is still in its infancy, and the Lebanese people have been exposed to food, health, life and services, and all aspects of life. life are on the brink of collapse. “