প্রকাশ: 08/08/2022
The World Bank has
said the prices of food items in Pakistan had increased by 5% to 30%. This was
stated in the "World Food Security Update Report" released by the WB.
According to the report, the war between Russia and Ukraine
has caused the poor countries to suffer from food and debt crises.
African countries are facing the worst food shortage in 40
years and inflation is in double digits in many low-income countries, including
Pakistan, reports Express Tribune.
Food inflation is high in all middle-income countries.
The report added that global prices, including those of
agricultural products, had been stable for the past two weeks and an agreement
had been reached between Russia and Ukraine to release 20 million tons of
wheat.
The deal last month between Ukraine and Russia, brokered by
Turkey and the United Nations, to allow container ships carrying cereal to
leave Ukrainian ports helped bring commodity prices down.
The WB report showed a dramatic reversal of cereal prices on
global markets since June and a steep fall in the price of other agricultural
products to lows close to those seen last year.
The report stated that the war in eastern Europe would hit
many countries with an increase in food bills worth more than 1% of their
annual national income, while others would fail to contain the impact and be
plunged into a full-blown debt crisis.
Lebanon was the worst-hit, the WB report read, after a food
grain store explosion in Beirut two years ago crippled the country's ability to
hold and distribute maize and wheat to its 6.8 million people.
Food inflatioAXn in Lebanon hit 332% in the year to June, ahead
of Zimbabwe's 255% increase and Venezuela's 155%.
Turkey was fourth with a food inflation rate of 94%.
Low food prices have underpinned global growth in recent
decades, offsetting the high cost to developing countries of servicing their
debts and imports of fuel.
However, the WB report stated that the shock increase in
food prices over recent months was affecting most economies, including those
with relatively high incomes.
"The share of high-income countries with high inflation
has also increased sharply, with about 78.6% experiencing high food price
inflation," it read.
"The most-affected countries are in Africa, North
America, Latin America, South Asia, Europe, and central Asia," it added.
It further read that large producers of grain, including France, Spain and
Italy, would need to adjust to rising temperatures and uncertain weather
patterns driven by the climate crisis to maintain high levels of production.
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