Heba Press/. Rabat
Naima Al-Fathawi, a member of the Parliamentary Caucus for Justice and Development, called on the government to reveal what steps it will take to monitor and hold to account companies responsible for the price hikes.
In a written question to the Minister of Economy and Finance, Al-Fathawi referred to the Competition Council’s annual report for the year 2023, which holds some companies responsible for increasing prices through what he called the companies’ “inflationary greed,” which means companies increase prices beyond the increase in raw material costs or increase the prices of products whose costs have not increased.
She said the Competition Council described this behaviour as “undermining real competition and often being practised by large companies that control market reference prices, the latter seeking to exploit their great market power to raise prices and significantly improve profit margins, despite the general decline” in external inflationary pressures.
She explained that while inflation in 2022 was largely due to external supply shocks, such as rising import prices, inflation recorded in 2023 was affected by various factors, and that the causes of imported inflation had significantly decreased and imported inflation no longer had a slight impact on… Prices according to the same report.
