Africa-Press – Mozambique. One of the main food processing companies in Mozambique, the Companhia Industrial de Matola (CIM), has announced an 11 per cent increase in the price of wheat flour, leading to fears that the price of bread will now rise, reports Wednesday’s issue of the independent newssheet “Mediafax”.
CIM announced that a 50 kilo sack of wheat flour, which used to cost 1,800 meticais (about 28 US dollars at the current exchange rate), will cost 2,000 meticais as from next Saturday, 15 January. To justify increasing the price of flour, CIM cited the increase in the world market price of wheat, and increased Mozambican fuel and energy prices.
Mozambican bakers have already been complaining of rising costs, and the CIM announcement appears to make an increase in the price of bread almost inevitable.
However, the chairperson of the Mozambican Bakers’ Association (Amopao), Victor Miguel, promised that there will be no increase in bread prices this month. He said Amopao is studying the implications of the CIM announcement, and waiting to see whether, as expected, the other milling companies follow suit.
Miguel said that the bakers might increase the price of bread in late February or March, when negotiations are beginning between the government, the trade unions, and the employers’ associations about the 2022 increase in the statutory minimum wage.
“Mediafax” claimed that meetings are now being prepared with the Ministry of Industry and Trade to discuss the next steps. In the past, the government has intervened to keep the price of bread low by subsidising the wheat flour used by the bakers.
It is not yet clear whether the government will be able to subsidise flour this time, even though a rise in the price of bread could spark urban unrest.
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