The Ministry of Economy and Trade (MOET) and in collaboration with the World Food Programme (WFP) launched in July 2024 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 pulses, condiments, eggs, cereals, dairy products, vegetables, fresh poultry, oils, sugar, canned fish, fruits and beverages. The index, which uses January 2023 as a base month with an inception value of 100, attained 131.9 during the month of November 2024, posting a monthly contraction of 1.1% when compared to October’s figure of 133.5, and an annual increase of 10.6%. The Ministry commented that the high demand from internally displaced people in the Beirut and South governorates as a result of the war before the ceasefire agreement was reached in late November, has driven prices higher on  a monthly basis, while prices in the Baalbeck-Hermel region corrected downwards (-5%) on a monthly basis after spiking by 7% in October. The Ministry added that demand for poultry was negatively impacted by the hostilities, leading to a significant 12.5% drop in prices. The following table captures the values, monthly change, and annual change in the index’s major constituents:

The Ministry commented that prices in most governorates decreased on a monthly basis, with the exception of the South (3.0% increase) and Beirut (2.0% increase), while prices in the Nabatieh and North governorates remained stable.