Food Prices Spiral in Turkmenistan

A ten per cent rise in public-sector wages and pensions in Turkmenistan has done little to improve living standards because commercial food prices shot up shortly afterwards. The net result is that many people say they are switching to a poorer diet.

From January, the minimum permissible wage was set at 350 manats a month, 123 US dollars, and the bottom rate of pensions was raised to 133 manats.

But the increase was more than matched by market prices. Staple items like meat, vegetable oil, milk, sugar and vegetables all went up, swallowing up any additional spending power.

At the Tekinsky market in the capital Ashgabat that cost 9 manats (little over $3) per one kilogramme is sold at 12 manats now.

“My January salary rose by 20 manats, but food prices at the market have gone up by 20 to 25 per cent,” Aknabat, a woman from the capital Ashgabat, said.

People on slim budgets are cutting down even more, and conditions are worse in rural areas where living standards are lower.

Maral, a mother of four, described how she had cut out meat from the family diet so that they subsisted on vegetable soup and bread.

“There’s only fat to make my soup rich,” she said.

As consumers go for cheaper options, bread and flour sales are increasing, and bakeries are mobbed with people. Previous price rises created an earlier trend for replacing potatoes with cheaper pumpkin.

“I used to bake flatbread once a week, and now I bake twice weekly,” woman from Vekilbazar in southern Turkmenistan said. “My children mainly live on sweet tea and home-made bread.”

Similar increase in staple food prices last year has made many Turkmen citizens use cheap pumpkin in their food. This vegetable has replaced the expensive potato. However, this year’s prices of pumpkin in Ashgabat, Balkanabat and Turkmenbashi markets have increased three times.

Since the government has not commented on the price rises, rumours are circulating that unscrupulous traders are charging more simply because wages have gone up.

“Early in the morning you can buy vegetables cheap from farmers,” Abraiguly, a resident of Turkmenabat in the east of the country, said. “But if you’re too late, you won’t get anything because everything will be bought up by middlemen, who then set their own prices.”

This article was produced as part of IWPR's News Briefing Central Asia output, funded by the National Endowment for Democracy.