Benbada:“Bread price bound to be hiked to ward off squandering”

Algerian Trade Minister, Mustapha Benbada, has announced that a National Trade Laboratory in charge of monitoring the good quality of industrial products like the manufacture of bread by bakeries, building materials, household appliances and cosmetics will be translated into reality by the year 2015.

Taking the floor during a working visit of inspection on Tuesday to the province of Béchar, in south-western Algeria, the trade minister pleaded for the sound exploitation of markets set up across the country as part of ongoing efforts to absorb the sprawling informal market activities.

“These marketing spaces must be a tool for the promotion of the national production and a means for the regulation of prices and trading practices”, Mr Benbada underlined.

He also indicated that the price of bread, which is currently subsidized by the state, was bound to increase in the near future in order to head off the glaring squandering by numerous Algerian households of this vital product.

Mr Benbada affirmed to this effect that 60 thousand imported tonnes of various industrial products had recently been barred from entering the Algerian market because they didn’t tally with the required national ISO norms.

In a separate file, the trade minister further pointed out that Algeria would put its trading system in conformity with the agreements of the World Trade Organization (WTO) provided the granted transition time-frame was reasonable; adding that Algeria’s adhesion process to the WTO was going on smoothly.