Hypermarket chain freezes prices of 50 items in initiative
Originally published in Gulf Times on May 1, 2008
IN A move to contain the rising prices of food products in Qatar, leading hypermarket chain Carrefour yesterday decided to freeze the prices of 50 items until the end of this year.
Among them are White Flour (2kg) for QR8, Al Ansari Sugar (5kg) for QR13.50, Sandwich Bread (850gm) for QR3.75 and Arirang Milk Bread (750gm) for QR5.25.
Carrefour, with its three outlets in Qatar, has promised to be “the lowest-priced retailer” in the weekly list of “46 fast moving consumer goods” published by the Ministry of Economy and Commerce on their website.
The weekly list is a comparison of costs of 31 food items and 15 other items among existing retail outlets in Doha.
An official of Carrefour FMCG told Gulf Times yesterday that they had plans to include more items on the list.
“Unfortunately, we were unable to include commodity such as cooking oil at this time, because that item is facing even worst crisis than rice. It really would be a gamble to fix the price of cooking oil for a whole year during uncertain times,” he explained.
According to him, Carrefour is not going to receive any subsidy from the Qatari government for the initiative and that the “move was approved by the Ministry of Economy and Commerce after we explained that we want to satisfy the needs of families at different income levels by being available at rock-bottom prices.”
Shoppers, while welcoming the initiative, called for more items to be included on the list.
As Published
