Consumer rights further boosted in Egypt
Egypt, Economics, 6/2/2004

Consumer rights have growing global concern that has gained momentum since the establishment of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) in 1947, aiming at providing correct information about consumer products.

ÊÊÊEgypt has been home to consumer rights groups since the mid 1990s, when 66 non-profit consumer rights groups were founded. The debate over consumer rights aims to balance concerns for safety and making sure that products are available at affordable prices.

Since the consumer now has become the prime concern of all ministries and concerned agencies, a survey was recently conducted to explore the consumers' views, needs, desires, problems as well as means of consumer protection.

However, reaction of consumers towards buying a faulty product ranged between returning it, getting a refund to simply getting rid of it, said Head of the Egyptian International Committee for Consumer Rights Protection (EICCRP) Mahmoud Eissa.

Out of 1000 consumers from different social classes, 78.6 percent of the surveyed said that they would refrain from buying food commodities if their expiry date was over, while, 5.5 percent stated that they would inform the concerned agencies.

Moreover, 59 percent of consumers said that they would not buy the products that do not meet the standardized qualifications, while 86.1 percent of them would never resort to taking any legal measures against violations.

Some 80.5 percent of those who were included in the survey believed that there is a difference between the local and foreign products in terms of quality, the availability of spare parts and the post selling services, according to the survey. The survey also found that 33 percent of the consumers are concerned with the quality, another 33 percent with the post selling services, 20 percent with the price and 13 percent with the warranty period.

However, since a myriad of government agencies share responsibility of consumer protection, strenuous efforts are being exerted to curb increase in commodity prices, besides ensuring good quality.

In May, the government launched a new ration-card system to provide customers with subsidized discounts on seven key food commodities.

According to the Finance Ministry, almost 40 million citizens are expected to benefit from the new system, which will allow card carriers to buy rice, cooking oil, beans, flour, tea, butter and lentils at lower-than-market price. Moreover, the government has recently announced that it has no intentions to increase the benzene price as it could lead to an increase of many commodity prices. The government bears a huge energy subsidy totaling about L.E. 30 million.

On the whole, most consumer protection advocates argue that while public awareness is valuable, strong legislative measures are necessary.

In addition to the government exerted efforts, it is still important to empower the governmental organizations (NGOs) on consumer rights to exert pressure on suppliers.

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