Consumer food price reporting in recent days indicates Teff, beef and poultry prices continued to climb during the Easter holidays on both sides of the Eritrean-Ethiopian border.
Reporting by VOA's Girmay in Mekele for the Tigrigna service indicate that the price increase on some items has slowed, despite recent announcements by the Ethiopian government that prices in Ethiopia dropped as much as 50 percent in some parts of the nation.
In Eritrea, the service's stringer in Asmara, Senait, reported that the rise in prices has slowed for most food items except beef, which is scarce, some believe, due to beef exports to Sudan.
Prices of cereals and grains in the other regions have held or dropped, according to the VOA interviews with consumers and merchants. Tigray government spokesman Rugbe Kidane told Girmay that "recent action by the government to stabilize the market is showing results." Teff merchant Mohammed Nasir said the slowdown can be attributed to new controls the government has placed on hard currency available to exporters. However, some merchants and consumers say the government is starved for currency has started exporting sugar, resulting domestic price increases.
Last week, the Amharic service reported that there were some price drops in all but the price of Teff, but the reports from region to region were not consistent.