Dates prices raised by 60% before Ramadan

Ramadan due on Monday, astronomers

Dates for sale in San’a’s Old City ahead of the holy month of Ramadan.

Dates prices increased by 60 percent compared to last years prices during Ramadan. Many citizens are preferring not to buy dates for the holy month until prices drop down. Mohammed al-Zurqa, from the old city of Sana’a, said that 20 kilos of dates was priced as YR 5,000 last year but this year it jumped to YR 8,000. “It’s so expensive so I won’t buy dates; I’ll wait until the beginning of Ramadan; maybe the prices will drop down,” said al-Zurqa.

Al-Thawra daily newspaper, reported that the marketed dates are tampered with in addition to being so expensive. Al-Thawra reported that date merchants have been mixing the old expired dates of last year with the newly imported or harvested dates so as to achieve higher profits.
 
Some date traders in the capital and in the coastal governorates have established special labs to rip-off customers by mixing the old with the new dates.  Mohammed Zaid said that the process of mixing old dates with the new ones takes approximately ten hours. People who mix them usually spray water mixed with sugar on the old dates and wait for ten hours before they mix them with the new fresh dates.

He said that this cheating process is not new, as it has been repeated every year before Ramadan month. Some sources connected the date price hikes to the high demand and low supply resulted from the delay of the date harvest season in Saudi Arabia and Iraq.

Saleh al-Sharmani, a dates’ trader, expects the date prices to drop down by the start of the harvest season in Saudi Arabia. He said that the Saudi dates harvest time is expected to start by the beginning of Ramadan month, September 6, 2008 while the Iraqi harvest season might start by the 20th of Ramadan, September 26. 

The Saudi and Iraqi dates represent 70 percent of the Arab markets need. Dates production in Yemen has increased in 2007 reaching 53.6 thousand tons compared to 33.4 thousand tons in 2006. In 2007 Yemen exported 17 thousand tons of dates with a total cost of YR 1.3 billion. 

Citizens expressed worries of similar price hikes of other products on the occasion of the Ramadan month when traders usually exploit the high demand so they raise their goods’ prices every year. 

Ahmad al-Salimi said the problem is that they have been raising goods’ prices at the beginning of every Ramadan and they never drop them down when the demand is decreased.   “It is not a matter of supply and demand; it’s rather a matter of greed and achieving high profits on the account of the poor citizens, said al-Salimi. 

The date is an essential part of the Ramadan rituals and a food historically linked to Islamic culture. Muslims around the world follow the prophetic tradition of breaking each days’ fast with a date before gathering together for their evening meal. 

Ramadan, the month of fasting, is to start on Monday according to astrologists. However religious men and most of the Islamic states do not depend on the astrologists scientific predictions. They prefer to watch the crescent fall by the last day of Shaban month. If not at least two witnesses say that they witnessed the fall of the crescent they wait for one more day to start the Ramadan Month.

Life and work time completely changed in Yemen during the wholly month of Ramadan. People in Yemen stay awake all night long and sleep most of the day during Ramadan month.

The Ministry of civil service had announced the official working hours and decided to start work at 11 o’clock to 4 o’clock.   

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