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Afghanistan: Countrywide Weekly Market Price Bulletin, Issue 13 (Covering 2nd week of August 2020) - 12 August

Countries
Afghanistan
Sources
WFP
Publication date

Background

WFP has more than 20 years of experience in price data collection in Afghanistan. WFP launched its weekly market price monitoring and data collection in all 34 provinces in May 2020, and added 9 extra commodities to the analysis, including livelihood related items (fertilizers, improved seed and animal feed), based on requests from the Food Security and Agriculture Cluster (FSAC) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Now the market price bulletins are issued weekly, every Wednesday, containing information on food access and availability and covering the market trends of the previous week.

Highlights

  • Compared to last week (the first week of August), the average prices of all food commodities show no or negligible changes.

  • Compared to 14 March (pre-COVID-19 prices), almost all main food commodity prices have increased and both purchasing power indicators showed a decrease, as follows:

  • The average prices for both high and low price wheat flour were 11% higher;

  • The average price of wheat was 12% higher;

  • The average prices of high and low quality rice were 8% and 18% higher, respectively;

  • The average price of cooking oil was 30% higher;

  • The average price of pulses was 28% higher;

  • The average price of sugar was 22% higher;

  • Casual laborers’ and pastoralists’ purchasing power (Terms of Trade) have deteriorated by 5% and 6% respectively, mainly due to increased wheat prices.