Egyptians have started a red meet boycott in response to calls of consumer protection organisations in different governorates, aimed at reducing the price of meat which has risen astronomically. Red meat in Egypt has reached unjustified high prices which have affected the price of imported and processed meat, as well as poultry and fish, in spite of the government efforts to rein in prices. Breeders, butchers and meat importers accused each other of being responsible of this rise. Vice-President of the Egyptian Central Association for Consumer Protection, Soaud al-Deeb, told Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) that the price of local and imported meat rose 20-80 percent in recent weeks. Al-Deeb added that all of the association's members had joined the boycott campaign launched on Thursday, including intensive media activities in order to convince consumers to stop buying the red meat. Spokesman for the Citizens Against Price Rises Movement, Mahmoud al-Asqalani, on his part said that this campaign aimed at putting pressure on butchers and meat traders to curb prices. He called on the media to promote this campaign, saying that this crisis was due to a monopoly of meat import. He also called on merchants to import meat from Sudan and Ethiopia, to benefit from their close geographical locations and thus low cost of import, and the good quality of meat. Meat importer, Mohamed Al-Lewi, told KUNA prices were up because of the general rise of the cost of meat internationally, sayinf there was a hike in the cost of animal fodder, besides lack of supply, compared to high consumer demand. He added that this rise was a natural result of the rise in demand for meat, compared to the decrease in local production, where most meat traders were importing from abroad to achieve higher profit with less efforts. Owner of a butcher chain and a livestock breeder, Hamada Al-Masri, said that slaughtering female and young animals in large quantities resulted in low production levels. Al-Masri said that the difference between the prices of which the butcher bought the livestock and the price of selling it to the customer was not more than 15 per cent. He said that this campaign would not decrease prices, adding that the government should encourage local livestock breeders by decreasing the price of animal fodder, offering soft loans to the breeders, to bringing stability back to the market.
