Key Findings
• The economic reforms in September 2018, creating a 183% transaction fee on foreign currency and approving additional letters of credit, reduced prices across Libya by 13% between October 2018 and March 2019.
• The con ict in the south of Tripoli, which began in April 2019, caused prices across Libya to temporarily spike, especially the domestically produced agricultural goods, such as tomatoes, onions, potatoes and peppers. The cities with the largest price spikes due to the con ict were located in areas that suffered the most from logistical isolation created by checkpoints and road blockages.
• The prices of imported non-perishable goods were most strongly affected by the change in parallel market exchange rates, but uctuated later to these changes compared to domestically produced agricultural goods.
• The bread crisis in 2018 was resolved by allowing suppliers to import our at cheaper rates, alleviating the our shortage and reducing the price of bread signi cantly.
• Price changes for southern Libya experienced a month delay to parallel market exchange rate uctuations.
• In December 2019, the cost of the Minimum Expenditure Basket1 (MEB) food portion was 22.3% higher in the south than Libya overall, due to a number of logistical, political, infrastructural and security issues.
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