Our daily bread: Smaller and more expensive – Mozambique

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Our daily bread: Smaller and more expensive – Mozambique

9:58 CAT | 06 Apr 2017

Voa (File photo)

Bread is more expensive in Mozambique, with almost all bakeries in Maputo having raised prices since the government withdrew subsidies, further depressing the standard of living among the most vulnerable.

“The situation is bad,” Fernando Alcides, a street vendor in Maputo city, told VOA. “Bread has become more expensive but its weight reduced a lot.”

In some bakeries in the Mozambican capital, the price of bread rose from six to eight meticais, in others, from seven to 10, which “is excessive”, Alcides says.

Mozambican Minister of Industry and Commerce Max Tonela justified the withdrawal of the subsidy with the fall in the price of wheat flour on the international market and the relative strength of the national currency, the Metical.

The Mozambican Association of Bakeries is pleased with the government decision, because the price of bread will henceforth be set by the market.

Between July 2014 and February this year, subsidies to bakeries cost the government about US$4.5 million.

Source: Voa Portugues