KARACHI //At the teeming Empress Market in central Karachi's Saddar district yesterday, the economic effect of flooding that has destroyed at least 1.4 million acres of crops in Punjab and Sindh provinces was beginning to be felt. "Oh my God, have they!" exclaimed one shopper, Ms Haider, a school teacher who would give only her last name, about the recent increase in prices. She said that three days ago tomatoes cost Rs30 (Dh1.28) per kg. They are now up to Rs120 since the floods began.
"Most vegetables are at least double the price of what they were 10 or 12 days ago," she said. Traditionally as Ramadan approaches, people flock to stores and bazaars to stock up on food and cooking ingredients, with the yearly increase in demand normally driving up prices. But this year, the usual Ramadan price increase came with a supply-side twist as heavy rainfall inundated crops. Some shoppers yesterday said the price hike would mean cutting back during Ramadan. "Whatever budget we have we will use; if that means buying less, so be it," said Razia Sultan as she bought kilos of rice and daal.
As they sat behind tin bowls heaped with pyramids of tomatoes, onions and kerela, or stood amid mountains of rice and daal, merchants said that business was unusually slow. They said many customers were like Ms Haider and had expressed outrage at how sharply and quickly prices had jumped. "In general because of inflation people are buying less, but after the flooding and prices going up even further, people are buying much less," said Khalid Khan, 21, as he sold bags of apricots at Rs50 per kg up from Rs15. "Our fruit comes from Khyber [Pakhtunkhwa]. Because of the rains and flooding, a lot of it spoiled, so less came," he said.
While Mr Khan was speaking, one man who was contemplating purchasing a kilo of the apricots declined to buy after being told the price. Merchants expect the price of dry commodities such as rice and wheat flour to shoot up as soon as wholesalers ran out of their current supplies. "I am very worried because ata [wheat flour] and rice will be badly hit. The prices are steady now, but they will go up," said Zohaib Shaikh, who sells rice, flour and pulses at the market.
Farmers in flooded areas of Sindh this week said that rice crops had been decimated as well as stores of seed for next season's planting. At the Empress Market, shoppers also said that fruit and vegetable vendors were taking advantage of the unstable prices. "In the last three days, they are not selling 1kg of some things, only 5kg to maximize their profits," Ms Haider said. "They even use emotional blackmail. If you don't buy today, tomorrow could be double."
@Email:tkhan@thenational.ae