Food prices are planned to be frozen for when Slovakia adopts the euro in January 2009

The Cabinet has met at a special session to discuss plans to freeze the prices of selected foods, but the ministers didn’t agree either on the time-frame or a list of products. The only agreement made was that they will hold a further meeting in two weeks, when material with comments will be presented to all the ministries concerned. Agriculture Minister Zdenka Kramplova confirmed that there are five planned measures aimed at preventing hikes and speculation related to euro adoption, but she added that these are still only subjects for discussion rather than final proposals. One possible measure would be an obligation for retailers to publish their average prices for the quarter year on their advertising leaflets, but it has been argued that this could confuse people. Economy Minister Lubomir Jahnatek doesn’t view price freezes as a good option, as they would have to be set across the whole market chain, from farmers through producers to retailers. He wants to tackle the situation by introducing an obligation for processors and retailers to provide calculation reports showing the differences between purchase and sale prices, which he claims will clearly show if any speculation is taking place.



ua-reporter.com