The Ministry of Economy and Trade (MOET) and in collaboration with the World Food Programme (WFP) published December’s statistics of the Market Food Price Index (MFPI) which is a gauge that tracks the changes in the prices of 74 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 135.7 during the month of December 2024, posting a monthly increase of 2.8% when compared to November’s figure of 131.9 and an annual appreciation of 9.7%. The Ministry commented that the combined effect of conflict, mass displacement, and economic deterioration over the past year had a more pronounced impact on consumption prices in Baalbek-El Hermel, North, and South governorates. On a monthly basis, the prices of fresh poultry and vegetables reported the sharpest increase (16.1% and 6.2% respectively), while the prices of condiments and sugar reported the largest drops of 1.5% and 1.4% respectively. The following table captures the values, monthly change, and annual change in the index’s major constituents:

Barring the Nabatieh region (1% monthly drop in prices), all regions in the MFPI reported monthly increase in prices, with the most notable monthly rise taking place in Akkar (7%), followed by Baalbek-El Hermel (6%), the Bekaa & South (5% each), the North (3%), Mount Lebanon (2%), and Beirut (1%) governorates.