High stationery prices dealt another blow to parents' pockets, Nesma Nowar reports While thousands of children get ready to step back into the classrooms with schools reopening next week, parents are getting their wallets ready for the necessary back-to-school shopping for their children. However, many families have been shocked to find that, this year, stationery items have come to cost as much as 25 to 30 per cent higher than last year. Higher stationery prices have imposed a further burden on families' budgets which have already been strained due to the recent additional expenses of Ramadan and Eid Al-Fitr. Adel laments the soaring prices of stationery claiming that prices are now triple what she used to pay a few years ago. Consequently, Adel said that she would have to buy a limited amount of stationery items at the beginning of the school year and would continue buying the rest throughout the year. "My budget is very tight; I would not afford to buy all the items at the same time," Adel told Al-Ahram Weekly. Notebooks, a major stationary item, have witnessed an increase in prices that ranged from 25 to 30 per cent, according to Khaled Abdu, head of the Chamber of Printing Industries at the Federation of Egyptian Industries. Abdu attributed the price hike to two factors: the increase in the price of paper globally by more than 20 per cent and the increase in the cost of the foreign currency (the dollar) which in turn increases the cost of import activities. "Egypt produces roughly 40 per cent of its needs of paper and 60 per cent are being imported." Prices of notebooks vary according to size, shape and quality; however, Ahmed El-Sayed, a government employee, who went to buy notebooks for his three children, complained from the very bad quality of paper this year. Abdu attributed good part of this problem to the entry of many Chinese products to the Egyptian market. He claims importers present the customs authorities with false invoices which do not reflect the real quantity and price of items imported. "This leads to the entry of low-quality Chinese products with lower prices than the local ones on the market." Therefore, Abdu stated that the chamber has sent many complaints to the Egyptian Customs Authority in order to stop the entry of Chinese products with false papers due to the harmful effect they have on the local industry of stationery. He pointed out that by this situation, Chinese products compete with local products, and because the imports are sold at reduced prices, they are a threat to the local industry and might lead to a halt in production. Besides notebooks, other stationery items, such as pens and erasers, have also witnessed a price hike that ranges from 25 to 30 per cent. Abdu stated that this is due to the increase in the prices of raw materials needed for production. "Raw materials constitute 85 per cent of the price of a commodity," Abdu told the Weekly. "Increased prices this year are an inevitable consequence," he added. One employee at one of Cairo's stationery houses affirmed that there is a price increase in stationery this year, adding that the market is stagnant compared to previous years. "People usually started their back-to-school shopping two months prior to the beginning of the school year." The employee explained that, this year, despite it is only a few days before the beginning of schools, people are not seen pouring into stationery to make the needed shopping. However, he believes that they would start by the beginning of next week when schools actually start. photo: Mohamed Wassim
