AMMAN —
Economists urged the government to consider viable reductions to energy bill to
mitigate its impact on their rising inflation.
اضافة اعلان
Inflation rose
by 5.36 percent last month, compared with August 2021, according to the
Department of Statistics data released on Sunday.
In its monthly
report on the general consumer price index for August 2022, the department said
inflation reached 108.18 points, compared with 102.68 points in August 2021, a
5.36 percent increase.
Fuel and
lighting contributed the largest chunk of 31.59 percent to the hike, according
to the report. Others included transportation with 6.89 percent, rents 4.48
percent, culture and entertainment 14.2 percent, and healthcare 6.97 percent.
Economist
Mohammad Al-Basheer said that “the rate of increase is large, given that
consumers are suffering from difficult conditions as a result of high prices in
light of eroding incomes and high unemployment rates.”
“All of those
circumstances combined exacerbate the difficult situation on producers, as it
will be difficult for them to sell their products,” Basheer told
Jordan News.
“This will slow
down the economic wheel,” he added.
He asserted that
the government should deal “more flexibly with the energy dossier”, which will
lead to a reduction in inflation.
“The global
prices of oil derivatives increased more than once this year, and in turn, we
in Jordan also raised the prices as well,” he said. “But when it came to the
prices falling worldwide, the government reduced the price of oil derivatives
slightly.”
Economist Mazen Irshaid said that the rise in the inflation rate was expected. He said that the
increase “maintained the five percent level for three months in a row now”.
“Fuel and food
were among the main reasons for the rise in inflation, and here it must be
remembered that more than 85 percent of our basic needs are imported from
abroad”, Irshaid said.
He maintained
that “imported goods from abroad are subject to global prices, and they
experienced a significant hike in price in the past few months.”
“Therefore, a
rise in inflation in Jordan was expected,” he told
Jordan News.
He said that it
is expected that the inflation rate will fall next month because the “price of
oil derivatives have fallen”.
“Despite the
decline in food prices as well, I expect that a reduction in the price of oil
derivatives, in particular, will bear the greatest impact on a decreased rate
of inflation,” he pointed out.
Analyst
Hussam Ayesh said that figures and rates indicate that the purchasing power of citizens
has “clearly eroded.”
He explained
that “raising the interest rate leads to an increase in costs, which in turn
also leads to an increase in prices, and therefore this affects the purchasing
power of citizens.”
“On the ground,
it is noted that the inflation rate is higher than in the official statistics, especially
with regard to the weak purchasing power and the weak economic wheel that is
being witnessed nowadays,” he concluded.
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