14.5% the Average Decrease in Agricultural Producers’ Prices during April 2018
The data issued by the Department of Statistics indicates a decrease in the Average Agricultural Producers’ Price Index for April 2018 by (14.5%) compared with April 2017. (The Price Index reached 102.6 in April 2018 compared with 120.0 in April 2017).The most significant crops that contributed to this decrease were tomatoes (79.2%), potato (27.5%), watermelon (28.7%), cherries (45.5%), humous (40.5%), humous grain (40.8%), green almond (51.0%), green sweet pepper (50.7%), cantaloupe (34.8%) and apricot (55.2%).( the total of their relative importance constituted 64.5% of the total indicator value).
Meanwhile, there was an increase in the price index of cucumber, onion, squash, strawberry, spinach, chinese lettuce, colored sweet pepper, string beans, cabbage and green lettuce by 134.7%,81.4%, 61.0%, 52.1%, 120.4%, 163.8%, 25.2%, 26.1%, 71.8% and 30.5% respectively (the total of their relative importance constituted 35.5% of the total indicator value).
The report also shows that the Price Index has decreased by (12.7%) in April 2018 as compared with March 2018 (the price index reached 102.6 in April 2018 compared with 117.5 in March 2018). The most significant crops that contributed to this decrease (the total of their relative importance constituted 72.4%) were watermelon (66.3%), tomato (32.0%), cantaloupe (70.6%), humous grain (59.5%), green almond (61.8%), loquat (31.9%), humous (34.2%), hot pepper (67.1%), potato (6.0%) and strawberries (16.7%). Meanwhile, there was an increase in the price index of spinach, green lettuce, cucumber, chinese lettuce, squash, cauliflower, eggplants, parsley, broccoli and string beans by 147.8%, 193.2%, 19.5%, 200.7%, 28.6%, 18.9%, 11.8%, 13.0%, 58.2% and 11.0|% respectively with a relative importance of 27.6%.
On the accumulative level, the Price Index of Agricultural Producers has decreased by (18.5%) for the first third of 2018 as compared with the same period of 2017 (the accumulative price index reached 97.9 for 2018 compared with 120.1 for the same period of 2017). The most significant crops whose Price Index Average contributed to this decrease were tomatoes by (70.9%), cauliflower (36.5%), eggplants (35.9%) green sweet pepper (24.7%) , potato (23.0%), hot pepper (17.2%), string beans (15.7%) and squash (2.7%), whose relative importance constituted 75.9%. Meanwhile, there was an increase in the price index of cucumber, colored sweet pepper and banana by 23.8%, 10.0% and 2.5% respectively with a relative importance of 24.1%.
