The Ministry of Economy and Trade (MOET) and in collaboration with the World Food Programme (WFP) recently launched an index (Market Food Price Index “MFPI”) to gauge the changes in the prices of 73 sub-constituents of essential foods, clustered within twelve main constituents, across a sample of 1,000 stores in different regions of the country. In more details, the twelve main constituents are legumes, spices and sauces, eggs, grains, dairy products, vegetables, poultry, oils, sugar, canned fish, fruits and drinks The index, which adopts January 2023 as a base month with an inception value of 100, attained 127.38 during the month of July 2024, up by 0.02% on a monthly basis and by 16.96% on a yearly basis.  The Ministry commented that the conflict in the South affected the production of poultry and vegetables, leading to a shortage in supply and subsequently to an increase in their respective prices by 58.40% and 37.30%. On a monthly basis, the price of poultry increased markedly (5.40%) also due to the aforementioned reasons, while the prices of fruits reported the largest drop of 4.40% as hurdles on fruit exports led to a domestic oversupply, always according to the Ministry. The following table captures the values, monthly change, and annual change in the index’s major constituents: