This type of bread currently costs 3.5 meticais (though some bakers were already selling it for four meticais). A meeting of the Maputo Baker's Association on Thursday decided to put the price up to five meticais, using the argument that the costs of production have risen "exorbitantly" in recent months. (At current exchange rates there are about 25.9 meticais to the US dollar).
Speaking to reporters immediately after the decision was taken, the chairperson of the Bakers' Association, Victor Miguel, blamed the rise in the price charged by the milling companies for wheat flour. These companies in turn blame the increased international price of wheat.
With the exception of a small amount grown on the Angonia plateau in the western province of Tete, Mozambique does not produce wheat. Every gram of wheat consumed in Maputo is imported.
Miguel could not speak for bakers elsewhere in the country, but he assumed that the price of bread would rise in other provinces too.
"This price rise should have happened at the beginning of this month", said Miguel. "We were violently attacked by the milling companies, though they have their own reasons, arising from the price of wheat and transport costs".
On 30 April, the price of a 50 kilogram sack of wheat flour was 550 meticais. Today the same sack costs up to 595 meticais.
Miguel said that the milling companies have told the bakers that no further significant rises in the price of flour are expected until November. The bakers therefore promised not to put up their prices again until December.
But some bakers fear that the sudden increase in price to five meticais will harm their business. Luis Mondlane, a baker in Boane district, 30 kilometres west of the capital, thought that, while consumers in Maputo city might bear the increase, elsewhere purchasing power was so low that people might just stop eating bread.
"For us, even if we say that bread now costs four meticais, it might not be bought", he warned.
Others feared that some people, whom they labelled "dishonest", would start selling bread for less than five meticais. They regarded this as "unfair competition" and wanted the inspectorate of the Ministry of Industry and Trade to crack down on people who dared to sell bread cheaply.
"We can stipulate prices, but nobody will buy", feared one participant. "In the street, nobody will apply this price. Some will sit in front of our shops and sell bread at cheaper prices".
In some cases, however, the bread is not really any cheaper - the loaves are just smaller than 250 grams. This trend was already happening with the old price.
An official of the Maputo Industry and Trade directorate, Luis Machiana, promised the bakers that measures would be taken against anyone found selling underweight loaves.
SOURCE: AIM
