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Market and Price Monitoring during COVID-19 Pandemic in Mozambique

Global health crisis has been slowly creeping into our communities. While economic models suggest Covid-19 will not have a major impact on global food prices, it is anticipated to put upward pressure on food prices in some areas of the world.

As the COVID-19 virus continues to spread in the its impacts have reached every aspect of our lives and shook all sectors of the economy. Monitoring food prices is particularly important amid this crisis. Food prices strongly influence livelihoods and dietary choices made by farmers, traders, processors, and consumers. Milk, meat, fresh fruit and vegetables are costing more at the grocery store during COVID-19 in developed countries, reports noted.When markets are tight, prices are sensitive to shocks such as a bad harvest or today, pandemic-related supply disruptions.

Mozambican market and food prices monitoring situation 

According to the of basic food prices in June, important variations were detected in urban markets monitored by INFOCOM and rural markets monitored by SIMA (maize grain, manufactured corn flour, imported rice, butter beans, vegetable oil and sugar).

The border closure with South Africa continues to constrain the supply of Mozambican markets, thereby resulting in an upward pressure on prices

In some rural markets monitored by SIMA, there were pronounced decreases in the average price of butter beans (33.3%) and maize grain (20%), which can be explained by the availability of these commodities during this season (i.e. the beginning of the harvest season mainly in rural areas of Mozambique).

Prices of imported goods such as imported rice and vegetable oil increased in some markets. This can be partly attributed to the continued depreciation of the metical against the USD. On the other hand, weekly prices of maize grains, butter beans and brown sugar have been decreasing/stabilizing in many rural markets and urban areas. Formal and informal imports (commonly called mukheristas) mainly from South Africa are being negatively affected by travel restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The border closure with South Africa continues to constrain the supply of Mozambican markets, thereby resulting in an upward pressure on prices.

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