A letter to traders [Archives:2008/1205/Community]

By: Maged Thabet Al-kholidy
[email protected]
Though the topic of this article is somehow broad, it directly touches upon one of the most critical phenomena in Yemen. As the title suggests, it is a call for traders who prove to be negative in response to the international changes of prices.

By traders, I do not mean only retail or even wholesale traders, but also importers and manufacturers as well. In the last few years, or let us say, decades, such traders showed their direct contact with the international changes of prices, fees, customs and anything that may influence the costs imported or produced in Yemen.

Whenever traders hear about a price hike in any of the above mentioned factors, they immediately move earth and heaven, hiking the prices of everything in spite of its relatedness to such changes in the world.

Of course there might be some products which are not influenced by such international changes. But traders get it a chance to generalize new prices for all the products without any consideration of the people's economic status. The best excuse for such traders is the “international exchange””.

Many times we experienced sudden price hikes in many imported and local products. Rarely do people say “”No””. They accept everything. The only thing they have is to know why such hikes so that they take the reasons as topics for discussions in the Qat sessions and public arguments. They sometimes hesitate to buy the products for the new higher prices