Consumer weak purchasing power, Doubles unmarketability [Archives:2003/681/Business & Economy]

Mahyoub Al-Kamaly
Food markets in Sana’a have seen a relative crowdedness this year as consumers rush to shop food stuffs for breakfasting meals even before the advent of the holy month of Ramadan. Many companies and food industry factories have worked to increase their production to cover or meet the market demand and many commercial exhibitions have been held mainly with the aim of making for losses many firms have sustained during the year due to recession in their sales.
Retail sale merchants explain the cause of the drop in their selling of foodstuffs as attributed to the weakness of purchasing power of consumers in general and the rise in rate of prices by certain steady percentages incompatible with the capability of those of limited income.
While the government has ordered its institutions to pay up employees salaries and wages before the end of October to help them be able to buy requirements of Ramadan purchases, workers of private sector professions found this year themselves rather in bewilderment. They are unable to provide for the cost of their daily living and have no financial capability to travel to the countryside to spend the fasting month amidst their families as they have been used to do so every year.
Retailers say the present living condition of majority of consumers force those to avoid buy quantities of foodstuffs to store them for the month of Ramadan and such people prefer to buy their daily needs of goods, especially those working at free professions. Plumbing worker Saeed Abdulla Hassan affirms he has failed during the month of Sha’ban (the month preceding Ramadan) to save a sum of money to be allocated to spend on buying requirements for the month of fasting. The ten days of work he got during that month were not enough to cover his expenses of the days of his being without work. Saeed speaks bitterly about the days when he was working in Saudi Arabia saying that his work there was providing him with good income helping him to spend the fasting month among his family. But here in Sana’a this year he has not been able to save expenses for going to the countryside to spend the month with his family.
Retail sale dealers criticize big producers who hold trading exhibitions as in doing so they are adding more burdens on them by attracting the well-to-do consumers to those exhibitions and such a situation forces retailers to sell their goods on credit to poor segments of the people. Dealer Ahmed al-Sabri sees that big exhibitions do not offer low prices because they seek to gain profits from those rich and middle class segments and that those producers would more often increase shift of their workers to increase their production and consequently increase their supply to meet increased demand. He adds that what happens is that the consumer does not have the enough purchasing power and this produces more stagnancy of the increased production.
It is notices, however, that fasting people during the month of Ramadan do double the volume of consuming goods particularly foodstuffs of all kinds as if Ramadan is a month for excessive appetite, not rather an occasion for showing sympathy for the poor and the needy and as Muslims to feel the hunger of the poor and be sympathetic towards them in this month.
Nevertheless, charitable societies related to some political parties usually implement programs and plans for assisting the poor in Ramadan and provide them with foodstuffs, money and clothes especially in the Eid that follows the end of Ramadan and thus bring happiness to many poor families. This is really considered part of the favors of this holy month.
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