Dear colleagues,

 

We are pleased to share with you the latest AP Weekly Price Monitor (26 April). You can find this and previous issues here.

 

Over the past week, staple food commodity prices remained relatively stable in all reporting countries, except for:

 

-         Wheat flour prices in Afghanistan fell by 7 percent  by mid-April and were 12 percent below the prices observed three months ago.

-         Groundnut oil prices in Myanmar dropped by 7 percent during the second week of April.

 

Under national policy highlights, China signed the first ever Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with an European country, Iceland. In Indonesia some national social assistance programmes will be enhanced to protect the most vulnerable population as a response to recent fuel price increases. Among them, rice distribution under the Raskin programme (targeting poor families) will be increased from 15 to 20 kg per household from May to July 2013.

Regarding the weather situation, the Chinese Government allocated CNY 1 billion (USD 160 million) to respond to the earthquake that hit southwest China's Sichuan Province early this week. Similarly, the Government of China continues to allocate resources (this time, CNY 220 million ~ USD 35.5 million) to ensure supplies of food and drinking water to poor people in drought-hit areas in Sichuan and Yunnan southwest provinces and Gansu northwest province. According to estimates, the persistent drought situation started since October 2012, has affected 23.7 million people and 7.3 million hectares of farmland in the mentioned provinces, as of March 2013 (Xinhua, 10 and 21 April 2013).

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For more details, please see the full report.

With best regards,

AP Weekly Price Monitor team

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