The Cabinet of Ministers has agreed on raising the prices of medicines selling for less than EGP30 by 20%, according to the Minister of Health and Population Ahmed Emad El Deen. The Cabinet has set two  conditions for allowing the price increase: the first condition requires producers to sufficiently supply the market with the products included in the government’s decision and the second conditions requires the existence of numeric codes on the included products; so they can be trackable. The market has been suffering a shortage of  c4,000 medicine classes that were mostly in the lowest price range as the hike in costs pushed their producers to halt their production, thus, the new decree should end this phenomena as the decision will raise the producers ability to continue their production, the Minster added. The Minster noted that the government will enforce strict supervision on producers to avoid the misuse of the government’s decision through increasing prices at a higher rate or increasing prices for medicines that were not included in the government’s decision. (Al Borsa)