CAIRO - Millions of Copts in Egypt approach this year's Christmas, which starts on January 6, with a mixture of joy and dissatisfaction about the unexplained rise in turkey prices. Many consumers have launched a campaign urging Egyptians to boycott buying the traditional turkey before Christmas, which is celebrated on January 7 in the Middle East. During this feast, which involves vast quantities of food being presented, Coptic families traditionally buy a turkey for the Christmas dinner, the main meal that they eat after returning from the Christmas Eve Midnight Mass to break their fast. Consumers complain that the price of one kilo of turkey has jumped from LE30 to LE40 for no apparent reason. A Cairo poultry shop owner, who asked not to be identified, said that he sold one kilo of turkey for LE40 after it had been LE30 and one kilo of duck for LE28 after it had been LE22. Mohamed el-Asqallani, the chairman of Citizens Against Price Hikes, a Cairo-based non-governmental organisation (NGO) concerned with consumers' rights, has launched a campaign urging Copts to boycott buying turkey before Christmas this year. He has appealed to Copts to give up turkey all together and make other poultry feature heavily in their Christmas dinner table." Our Christian consumers are earnestly requested to buy more chicken to lower the retail price of turkey and ducks ahead of Christmas," he explained. Although poultry shop owners and breeders sell thousands of tonnes of turkey every Christmas, Coptic consumers still complain about the price hikes. "Even if the Government sold imported poultry meat at low prices, the poor people would not be able to buy it," commented Naguib Murad, a primary school teacher, who works in the Cairo neighbourhood of Hadayek el-Qubba. "One kilo of imported turkey is sold for LE28 at the supermarket," he complained. Amid the expected low demand for turkey meat before Christmas, consumers face a rise in the price of local products. Murad complained that people on low incomes like him are being priced out of this poultry loving country. "High poultry prices mean consumers have lower purchasing power. Poor consumers are likely to reduce their overall spending, maintain spending on basic food items, and shun luxury food like the Christmas turkey." Market analysts say the price increases are due to the current political circumstances and inflation rates that have remained high since last year. They blame high inflation rates for causing more hardship for the people and snatching poultry out of the mouths of the poor. "There are no compelling reasons for such a rapid rise in the price of poultry," Emad Ramsis, a Cairo-based consumer, said, calling on the Government to put pressure on private producers and importers not to increase poultry prices. However, poultry shop owners said that the increase in chicken and turkey prices has multiple causes. These include the surging increase in the prices of animal fodder, leading to rising meat prices, shop owner el-Arabi said. In 2011, Prime Minister Kamal el-Ganzouri vowed that increasing economic growth will "ease Egypt's problems”. Last year, the Egyptian pound weakened to its lowest level in nearly seven years against the dollar, the cost of Government borrowing rose to its highest in three years and Standard & Poor's lowered its credit rating on Egypt, saying a "weak political and economic profile" had worsened, according to Reuters. In the meantime, economists agree that Egypt needs a quick fix. They say the budget deficit could rise from 8.6 per cent of GDP to about 11 per cent by June 2012, which is much more in line with what economists have said for months. "The political process still has a long way to run, and funding the large and rising budget shortfall is going to remain a major policy challenge," said HSBC economist Simon Williams.
