With our correspondent in Conakry, Mouctar Bah

The surge in prices of essential goods or mass consumption products is a headache for households in Guinea. Binta Cosa, who lives in the suburbs of Conakry, is doing her shopping: "We women are suffering from our living conditions, we are in the markets selling everything that comes our way, since today women are the guarantors of household balance, but we are encountering all sorts of difficulties given the cost of living, in this country everything is expensive, to eat your fill you have to be blessed".

An economist by training who became an importer of mass consumption products, Souleymane explains the difficulties his profession faces: "The port of Conakry is today one of the most expensive ports in the sub-region because there is Bolloré which charges as it pleases, the maritime companies do the same, you have the national customs which has a very high tariff compared to the value to pay to get the goods out of the port and the processing of files is very slow at customs".

He makes his request to the Guinean state: "We are asking the state to open a dialogue channel, we thought that with all the meetings we had with the concerned ministers of Commerce, Industry and Budget, that the information we gave them would be transmitted as such to the president of the republic. Unfortunately, at the last meeting on Friday, the president did not seem to us like someone who was aware of our problems".

The Ministry of Industry and Commerce, when contacted by RFI, did not wish to comment at this time.

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