Increase of 55.6% cited in first 9 months of 2022

KUWAIT CITY, Dec 1: The subsidy bill for food and construction materials borne by the government during the first 9 months of 2022 reached 224.2 million dinars, an increase of 55.6%, with a value of 80.1 million dinars, compared to spending amounting to 144.1 million for the same period of 2021, reports Al-Anba daily.

Official data seen by the daily showed that the subsidy bill had recorded 225 million dinars spending in 2021 and the 2022 bill is likely to increase at a greater rate, especially since the entire 2021 spending is roughly equivalent to the volume of spending for the first 9 months of this year. The jump in the subsidy bill was driven by the global rise in the prices of commodities, foodstuffs, and construction materials, which burdened the Ministry of Commerce and Industry with additional burdens, in a step to mitigate the effects of the global rise on citizens, through its pledge since the beginning of last year to bear those increases as part of its endeavor to provide goods and needs. Basic commodities supported by their previous prices and without burdening the citizens, as they deliberately borne the price difference resulting from the high cost of basic commodities from origin.

This comes in addition to bearing the cost of shipping and transportation, which was a natural result of a number of factors, starting with the corona virus pandemic in 2019, then the repercussions of the Russian-Ukrainian war in the year 2022, whose effects are still continuing on the whole world to this day, leading to the increase in material subsidies and construction driven by the new housing distributions and the start of many citizens’ constructions to build the house of life in a number of new cities, on top of which is the residential city of Al- Mutla’a and West Abdullah Al-Mubarak and other areas.