Standing at a whopping 12.7%, the highest food inflation rate in the GCC for the period from January 2022 to November 2022 was recorded by Bahrain.
The World Bank’s most recent report on food security, states that among the list of high-income countries, the Kingdom recorded a significant increase in food prices, ranging from between 5% to 30%.
Meanwhile, Kuwait’s food inflation rate increased by 7.1%, Oman’s rose by 5%, Saudi Arabia’s climbed by 3.7% and Qatar reported a marginal increase of 0.3%. There is no official data available for the United Arab Emirates.
In February 2022, Bahrain recorded a high inflation rate of 12.2%, which corresponded with the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian war and the start of the global supply chain crises.
The report claims that domestic prices of food are continuing to increase in many parts of the world. Data for the period from September and December 2022, shows that 94.1% of low-income countries, and 92.9% of low-income countries reported an increase in inflation. While the report states that 87.3% of high-income countries experienced high food price inflation.