Rising food prices in Saudi Arabia

ABSTRACT Food prices play a major role in setting inflation rates, and in recent years’ global climatic conditions has worsened a lot while global demand is increasing due to the growth of the middle class in countries such as China and India. Rising food prices remains a key concern for the government of Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia remains vulnerable to increases in food prices due to its high dependence on imports. The Saudi economy is an open-market based economy which is reflected by data of foreign trade with trading partners of the Kingdom. High degree of economic openness of a country causes the domestic inflation rate to be affected by change in the prices of goods in the country of origin. Saudi government is facing the challenge of limiting inflation amid a spike in global food prices. Another major challenge to the effectiveness of the Saudi monetary policy is the lack of autonomy due to the pegged exchange rate system with the US dollar. This paper attempts to study the market dynamics of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, drivers responsible for inflation and measures that has been taken by the government to deal with the situation.