A Government spokesman said today that the sharp consumer price increases announced yesterday were not as broad as they seemed. He attributed them to inflationary pressures exerted from outside of Israel as well as within the country. The spokesman, a senior official of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, told the JTA that the 153 retail items marked up amounted to less than five percent of all the food consumed in Israel and were, in many cases, variations of the same product. He cited, as an example, tuna fish in oil, tuna fish in tomato sauce and tuna fish in sauce piquant. The spokesman said inflation in Israel was a response to a world-wide inflationary trend manifested by higher prices for raw materials purchased abroad and higher ocean freight rates. He said transportation costs inside of Israel have also gone up and that there has been an upward “wage creep” in Israel despite a wage freeze supposedly in effect during 1969. He said his Ministry could do little to change the situation.
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