The United Arab Emirates are considering a plan that would give its nationals discounts on 14 food items and gas to offset rising prices and inflation.

Dubai (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Bread, rice, tea, sugar, milk, butter and other basic food items will be sold at cost in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). A proposal to this effect comes from the UAE Ministry of Economy and Planning and a consumer protection organisation. Nationals from the seven UAE states will be eligible for the discounts.

Inflation reached 10.9 percent last year, the highest in the past 20 years. By comparison, the UAE's economy grew 7.6 percent last year.

Families are the hardest hit because they cannot cut back on essential items whose price would go up without controls.

Food price inflation is partly driven by the dirham's link to the dollar so that food prices are expected to rise this year by another 10 per cent over last year.

Under the proposal, the Ministry of Social Affairs would provide UAE nationals with cards they can use at 16 cooperative supermarkets to be eligible for the discounts, said Jamal al-Saeedi, executive manager of the Emirates Society for Consumer Protection.

Cooperative supermarkets are owned by UAE nationals and generally provide lower prices on some goods.

For the 14 food items, the supermarkets would not be allowed to make profits on sales to cardholders, he said.

The proposal, drafted by the consumer protection body and Ministry of Economy, also calls for a discount on petrol and tanks of domestic cooking fuel, he added.

The plan will benefit only UAE nationals who represent a fifth of the population; the other four fifths are made up of immigrants who are already sorely tested by the crisis.

Foreign workers have in fact complained in the past that their savings have suffered from the decline of the US greenback and for this reason want higher wages.

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