site.btaEconomy Minister: Prices Will Change, State Will Use All Its Tools

Prices will change, the State will use all its tools, said caretaker Minister of Economy and Industry Nikola Stoyanov on bTV's morning show Wednesday.

Caretaker Prime Minister Galab Donev announced Tuesday that a daily mechanism for monitoring and control along the entire supply chain from the producer to the store stalls will be introduced. He held a meeting at the Council of Ministers on which together with Ministers and representatives of various institutions an analysis was carried out of the price formation of food products.

Stoyanov explained that they have been working on this matter since before Tuesday, because for the past three months there has been monitoring of the prices and processes and an analysis of the available information. In his words, there are a number of factors that must contribute to a decrease of prices, but prices are obviously not decreasing. "Even now, during the last days, there has once again been a slight increase," he noted.

He said that one of the measures is to clarify where those differences are. "A digital platform will be created, in which all institutions will communicate - both the customs and the Commodity Exchange and Wholesale Markets State Commission. I hope that the large retail chains will participate, too, because the goal is to fight unfair commercial practices, which would help all fair and ethical merchants", Stoyanov explained.

"At the moment, I have asked for and I am waiting to receive a report on the profits of retail chains for last year. According to the initial data we have, some of them have excess profits, meaning that we are all paying for those excess profits", Stoyanov commented.

He noted that the second measure being worked on is a new act on trade in food products, which exists in many EU countries but not in Bulgaria. It would include a definition of what unfair commercial practices are, in order to have that as a legal term. The control authorities will also be given greater powers, the Minister clarified.