Egypt protests cost $310m/dayROME/CAIRO: The United Nations food agency Friday warned that record-high prices for basic commodities are generating unrest around the world and helped topple the Tunisian president last month. “Not only is there a risk, but there have already been riots in some parts of the world because of rising prices,” Jacques Diouf, head of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), told reporters in Rome. “Some governments have found themselves in difficult situations and there is even one that has fallen,” he said - a reference to the ousting of Tunisia's Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in a popular revolt on Jan. 14. The FAO Thursday said food prices have reached their highest level since the UN agency began measuring them in 1990. The FAO's index measuring monthly variations for a variety of staples rose 3.4 percent from December 2010 to reach 231 points. France, which has promised to stamp out food price volatility as the current head of the G20 group of leading world economies, warned of “hunger riots”. “There is a real risk of hunger riots,” French Agriculture Minister Bruno Le Maire said at a joint press conference with Diouf. Le Maire called for “structural measures” to avoid spikes in food prices, including greater transparency over production and stocks. He said that G20 countries should agree on a system of food stocks that can be released for parts of the world that are most at risk. “Speculation on hunger in the world is economically dangerous and morally unacceptable,” he said, referring to widespread criticism of the role played by financial speculators on global commodity markets. A previous sharp rise in food prices in 2007 and 2008 triggered food riots in a number of African countries, as well as in Haiti and the Philippines. The average for the FAO's Food Price Index in 2008 was 200 points. Meanwhile, Credit Agricole said Egypt's ongoing political crisis is costing the country at least $310 million per day. In a report released Friday, the investment bank said it was revising down its forecast for Egypt's economic growth to 3.7 percent from 5.3 percent in 2011. Egypt's economy has been battered by the more than week-old protests in which tens of thousands are demanding President Hosni Mubarak's ouster. Banks and the stock exchange have been closed all week, while most factories have been shuttered. Tens of thousands of tourists have fled the country because of the violence, dealing a hard blow to the vital tourism sector. The unrest has led to price spikes of food in some areas of Cairo, further straining Egyptians who had complained about rising costs.
