OREANDA-NEWS. August 13, 2008. According to the experts of the World Bank, the rising costs for food products is a huge challenge for the country, where about 28% of citizens living in poverty.

As it was pointed out by the chief economist of the World Bank in Moldova Rekha Menon, the rising prices for food products affects mostly poor countries because they spend most of their money on food and are more dependent on wages and transfers.

In particular, employees of public institutions, children and adults whose average income is below two dollars, are the most affected. WB experts have specified that in the result of drought of 2007 the harvest made only 30% of the crop- 2006, production of vegetables fell by 33% and livestock - by 25%. The relative lack of food in the country led to the increase in prices for the food stuffs.

As compared with the corresponding period of the last year, increase in prices for food products in May 2008, amounted to 24%, prices for bread, fruit and milk-by 20%, 56% and 24%, respectively.

According to the Ministry of Economy and Trade, in January-June 2008, increase in prices for the food products reached 9.6%, in particular for rice- 2.3 times, fruits - 29.9%, meat, meat products and cannery - 26.6%, vegetable oil - 22.7%, bread - 8.1% and sugar - 5.8%. At the same time, the prices have decreased for potatoes - 22.3%, eggs - 13.2%, vegetables -7.3%, canned fish - 1.8%, as well as for milk and dairy products - 1.8%.