Rising prices are the world’s biggest concern

Groceries in shopping carts in supermarket

The problems of inflation – they become comprehensible for the citizens in the supermarket.

(Photo: dpa)

Dusseldorf Rising energy and food prices are a concern for most people around the world. That is the result of a survey of more than 20,000 women and men in 22 countries. This means that inflation is at the top of the list of concerns, ahead of unemployment, corruption and health problems.

The results of the study, which was carried out on behalf of the Open Society Foundations founded by George Soros, were available to the Handelsblatt in advance.

In the surveyed Eastern European countries (Poland, Serbia, Moldova, Ukraine), two thirds of the people fear that their families could starve. That is more than in India (59 percent). Worries are greater only in Latin America and Africa.

Mark Malloch-Brown, President of the Open Society Foundations and former Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations, is alarmed: “I expect serious political unrest in developing countries.” and food price problems, but Malloch-Brown fears that an important global joint effort to combat hunger, climate change and inequality will not take place.

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The study comes to the conclusion that the situation in the industrialized countries is also “very challenging”. In Poland, for example, the inflation rate rose to more than 16 percent year-on-year in August, although the central bank counteracted this early on with rate hikes. Energy was the main price driver, but food prices also rose by more than 17 percent. In Serbia, the drought and the associated loss of hydropower are currently exacerbating the energy crisis.

More Handelsblatt articles on the food crisis

According to another current study, the risk of social unrest due to sharply rising prices is also increasing in EU countries: According to a survey by the non-governmental organization More in Common, 75 percent of Poles fear the corresponding effects. In France, 69 percent believe that, in Germany 64 percent of those surveyed.

More: Fertilizer shortages, pesticide bans: Farmers and the agricultural industry fear for the harvests

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