DAMMAM — An economic analyst said the small change that consumers are usually not interested in taking with them after paying for purchases is worth an estimated SR274 million annually. Abdulhameed Al-Amri said halalas only account for a small fraction of the value of purchased goods. He said the “Here's your Change” campaign started by the Ministry of Commerce would not grab the attention of a consumer dealing with unjustified price hikes. He added that the campaign ignores price hikes for commodities reaching 20 to 30 percent annually and that consumers' purchases are in the range of SR250 billion to SR300 billion, Al-Yaum newspaper reported Sunday. The Ministry of Commerce and Industry on Saturday started inspecting shops to ensure it was complying with the “Here's Your Change” campaign and giving customers their change in coins, not in other goods such as chewing gum. The ministry would fine violating shops up to SR10,000 after the awareness campaign is completed. Riyadh's big stores apologized to their customers over the unavailability of coins, reported Alsharq. The manager of one shop said the banks were responsible for the unavailability of coins. He said that he visited a bank several times but the employee told him the coins would be available next week. Meanwhile, secretary general of the Awareness and Information Committee for Saudi Banks Talat Hafiz denied there was a shortage of coins in banks.
