While the Malian government announced a "strong economic recovery" in a high-profile manner, the price of cement was like a runaway horse, dragging the national treasury that had already lost international aid and the dream of building houses for millions of households into the quagmire. Moussa Alassane Diallo, Minister of Industry and Commerce, recently issued a "price limit order": 112,000 CFA francs per ton for local cement and 117,000 CFA francs for imported cement. However, the building materials market in Bamako, the capital, did not buy it at all, and the retail price was still strong at 120000 to 130000 West France/ton (equivalent to 1500 to 1650 yuan/ton) , about 10% higher than official cap line, as if the official document was just a dead letter. Zoom out
, and the contrast is even more glaring: the same kind of cement in Senegal is 71,000-106,000 per ton, while in Burkina Faso and Niger, it is as low as 55,000, less than half of Mali's market price. The inland disadvantage without coastline, the tight foreign exchange reserves after sanctions, and the government's loss of "last mile" control over distribution channels have reduced "price limit" to a slogan. Economic analysts hit the nail on the head: the state is unable to track the flow of goods, and has no intention of punishing hoarders, so price signals naturally only listen to the market.
For ordinary people, the gap in numbers directly turns into the silence of the construction site. Songalo, who has worked as a Mason for 20 years in the Kalaban-Kula district of Bamako, said that in the past six months, he has stopped more than half of the private housing projects in his hands. "The price of cement is one day, and the owner simply removes the scaffolding. He can't afford to wait.". Family self-built houses have come to a standstill, and cement craftsmen, transporters and brick factory workers have gone out of business together. The seemingly simple rise in building materials prices is pushing the local economy back to the ground.