Eid: A high shopping season marred by high prices

The minor feast, which falls after the Islamic month of Ramadan, is a high season for a large number of commercial activities, especially clothes and sweets.

Nevertheless, the ready-made garments sector was hit hard by the global recession initially induced by Covid-19 and now by the Russian-Ukrainian war.

These developments impacted production negatively and also affected prices which have been on a steady rise since the beginning of the war.

Ready-made garment traders and producers were pinning their hopes on the three-day feast, which starts tomorrow, to compensate some of the losses they have been sustaining because of the pandemic and the war.

However, declining demand is making these hopes almost impossible to fulfill.

Mohamed al-Daour, a member of the Ready-Made Garments Section at the Cairo Chamber of Commerce, said prices rose by almost 40% in the past few months since the start of the war.

He attributed the rise in the prices to rising shipping costs and energy and yarn prices.

“The price of yarn, for example, rose by 30%,” al-Daour said.

He said this rise was induced by – among other things – the rise in the exchange rate of the US dollar against the Egyptian pound.

Almost 70% of the yarn used in local factories is imported from other countries.

Meanwhile, the rise in prices is opening the door for recession, local traders say.

To get over the recession, clothes shops and traders are offering major discounts on the products they sell.

Nonetheless, customers say this is far from enough.

Housewife, Manal al-Sayed, specified 5,000 Egyptian pounds (roughly $271) for the purchase of new clothes for her three children last year.

“This amount of money can buy nothing this year,” al-Sayed said.

Some people try to cope by sticking to the basics and staying away from what they describe as ‘luxury items’.

The same recession is seeping out of the clothes and ready-made garments sector and into the nation’s bakeries which were waiting for the feast to increase their feast cookies and biscuits sales.

A patisserie shop manager in Cairo said he has to raise the prices, especially after the rise in the prices of all the ingredients that go into the making of cookies and biscuits.

“The prices of flour, butter, sugar, eggs and nuts are all shooting up,” the manager, who preferred to remain anonymous, said.

However, this is scarring consumers away from the delicious cookies and biscuits he is parading at his shop.

Afaf Mahmoud, a housewife in her mid-sixties, said the rise in the prices of the cookies and the biscuits mean that she would buy less this year.

“I can buy half a kilo of cookies and another half of biscuits,” Mahmoud said. “This is enough.”