Attachments
Highlights
- Food Items: Market price data collected during the 4th week of July shows negligible week-to-week changes with a slight increase in the national average prices of wheat and wheat grain and decline in prices of other food commodities. On a yearon-year basis, the prices of salt, cooking oil, Palawi rice, and low-price wheat flour shows increase of 19%, 17%, 8%, and 2% respectively, while the prices of other food items have declined. Compared to the two-year average, most food item prices show a significant decline, except for salt and cooking oil. Nonetheless, prices of some of the food items remain considerably higher compared to the same time during the pre-govt transition period in 2021.
- Food Basket: The national average WFP in-kind food basket price remained stable with a negligible increase of 0.5% from last week with 1 percent increase from the same time last year. The FSAC food basket, revised to 5,800 AFN in May 2024, shows a 4.9% decline from the revised transfer value, which does not meet the threshold to trigger a revision.
- Vegetable Items: Prices of key vegetables items experienced slight increase after a consecutive decline over the past few weeks which was mainly due to increase in market supply from domestic harvest. Compared to last week, national average potato and onion prices slightly increased by 8.0% and 5.8%, respectively with a negligible 1.1% increase in tomato price. Yearon-year and two-year average comparisons also show a significant decline in the prices of these vegetables. However, notable price differences persist across provinces, driven by local availability and transportation costs.
- Non-Food Items: Prices of non-food items such as fertilizers (DAP and urea) and animal feed continued to experience negligible week-on-week changes. Whereas, year-on-year comparisons indicate slight decreases in the prices of DAP and urea, while the price of improved seed and concentrate animal feed has increased.
- Labour Market: The national average labour availability for casual workers stands at 2.4 days of work per week, with the unskilled labour wage averaging AFN 316 per day in the country. Moreover, compared to the two-year average, there has been no improvement in labour availability and wages, indicating limited employment opportunities and weak purchasing power.
- Diesel: The national average price of diesel declined to AFN 64.1 per litre this week, a 0.2% increase from last week and returning to the level before the spike in late June. However, diesel prices are still higher by 7% when compared to the same time last year and 29% higher compared to the same period before the transition of the government in 2021. Moreover, the global average price declined to $1.22 per litre from $1.23 per litre during last week.