There will be no mixing of stocks of the staple food item by traders.

Stocks acquired before the 5% customs duty fixed by the 2016 finance law will first be sold to consumers at the normal price.

Thereafter the price will be determined by the trends in the international market. But the price is likely to fall rather than rise.

The minister of Trade has assured the public that the price of rice will not increase, contrary to speculations that have been rife these past days.

Speaking on Wednesday, January 13, 2015, in a meeting with economic operators dealing with the production and distribution of mass consumer goods, Luc Magloire Mbarga Atangana said the 5% customs duty fixed on the importation of rice by the 2016 finance law will have no direct effect on the housewife’s basket.

“The present level of stocks of rice acquired before the fixing of the new customs duty permits to a great extent, the coverage of the needs of the market in the course of the coming months,” Magloire Atangana assured.

According to him, this optimism is justified by the application of an accounting principle which prohibits the mixing of stocks and which therefore obliges traders to, first of all, exhaust the stocks they first had. In this way, the customs duty will not be taken into consideration in the sale of the product.

It is only later that the evolution of the trend of the price of rice sold to consumers will be looked into. But Minister Mbarga Atangana reassured consumers: “But as at now, nothing indicates that the price will increase for we have to first observe the prices in the international market and evaluate the incidence of the measures taken recently by the Head of State, particularly the reduction of the prices of fuel which will surely impact the cost of transportation. It is therefore not surprising that the price (of rice) remains stable or is reduced.”

He added: “…No matter how the international crisis may be, the Cameroonian market will know neither scarcity nor an increase in the price of rice.”

The declaration of the chief of sales for SOACAM for the Centre and South regions to the press was in line with what the minister said.

“I’m surprised just like the minister that people talk of speculation of the price of rice. There has been no increase of price in our country and the quantity we have is so much that we don’t have to talk about it now, for we have at least four months of sale without changing the price,” said Mohamadou Djahir.

Another participant at the meeting whose name we did not immediately get, spoke in the same light: “We won’t have problems in the coming months. The market will be supplied and the same price will be maintained…”