Fahd Al-Manaee Saudi Gazette MAKKAH – Markets in Makkah have raised prices of many consumer goods by up to 20 percent before the advent of the Ramadan taking advantage of minimal supervision by the authorities. There were huge differences in prices from shop to shop. A small can of infant milk now costs SR33 when the price was SR27 just a few days ago. A carton of tomatoes reached SR15 when it was within the range of SR8 to SR10. Some shops, especially those located in densely populated districts with a huge concentration of Umrah pilgrims and visitors, have hiked the prices amid the total absence of supervision. Most customers, who are visitors from abroad, are oblivious to the price hike as they not familiar with the normal prices. This reporter toured a number of shops, whose owners confirmed the price rise after blaming it on importers. One of the traders, who requested anonymity, said prices of many food items and consumer products witnessed a steep rise over the past few days. While some shop owners claimed they were compelled to raise the prices slightly with the increase in costs, there were other sales outlets that have hiked the prices unjustifiably, exploiting the lack of supervision by the Ministry of Commerce in particular. The evidence for this is the difference in prices of the same product from one market to another. Meanwhile, there are calls by citizens through the social networking sites, such as Twitter, Facebook and What's App, to begin boycotting food products whose prices are hiked unjustifiably. Several of them have provided lists of commodities for boycott, which are updated regularly to enable the consumers to keep track. They expect this step to help curb unjustified price increases by greedy traders.
