Monthly Market Monitoring Bulletin (January 2016)

Background

The market data and information is collected from six FSIS Programme target Governorates through the Governorate Focal Units (GFU) and FSTS in Sanaa city. The prices are collected from Hodeidah,
Hajjah, Dhamar, Hadramout, Lahej and Sanaa city markets. The prices collected from at least 3 representative market centers and average price is calculated for each location. The Market monitoring bulletin provides tables and charts that show the monthly prices in the targeted Governorate markets. It also provides and allows the users to compare the current prices with the previous month and the precrisis average.

Highlights

• Supply and availability of essential food and non-food commodities in the local markets significantly improved. Although import of essential food commodities and trade are improved, conflict continues to prevent traders from transporting goods to many areas of the country.

• The average prices of locally produced cereal and pulses reflect a relative stability in January 2016 compared to December 2015. However, these prices are still significantly higher when compared to the pre-crisis era in February 2015.

• The supply of fuel and cooking gas show slight improvement in most target governorates. However, the average monthly price of petrol increased by 33%-122% across the target governorates compared to the pre-crisis. Moreover, the prices in parallel markets is still very high and official channels of selling fuel and cooking gas are very limited and under the full dominance of parallel market prices.

• The average price of diesel in Hadramout has declined by 14%, which directly contributed for the drop in the cost of irrigation by 25%. The price drop encouraged farmers cultivating their irrigable land, which also created opportunity and demand for agricultural labor for winter season vegetables, fruits, tobacco production. x The average retail price of onion and tomatoes sharply declined between 32 - 43% in the targeted governorates. Due to improved supply, the price of tomato dropped between 12 – 29% in Sanaa, Dhamar, Hodeidah and Hadramout markets. The decrease in prices of onions and tomatoes is mainly seasonal and increased production in the coastal areas and mid altitude areas.

• Due to the increased need for potato planting material (seedlings) by farmers, the retail price of potatoes goes up sharply in January by 50 % in Dhamar followed by 35% in Sanaa, by 29 in Hajjah and 27% in Hadramout. The slight increase in potato prices is mainly because of short supply due to seasonal factors affecting potato production during this time of the year.

• The average prices of the imported commodities (wheat & wheat flour) remains stable in Sanaa and Dhamar governorates, while it declined slightly in Hajjah,
  Hadramout and Lahej. This reflects the relative improvement in the imports of staple food commodities.

• Because of the import restriction and blockage, there is high shortage of agriculture input, mainly improved vegetable seeds in the monitored markets of Lahej, Hajjah and Dhamar. Besides, expired vegetable seeds are observed in some markets, which will be a risk of loss of production if used by farmers.

• The average prices of different types live animals in January showed more or less similar trend of December 2015, but it showed remarkable improvement (40-50%) compared to the prices of April/May 2015. This is due to good rain and pasture in the Tihammah area during the previous months where farmers prefer keeping their animals until they get better prices while those in dry areas with scarce forage and pasture have a tendency of selling to reduce their flock size which influenced the prices in addition to the other market factors