According to the Prime Minister, big food chains and multinationals are raising prices even in circumstances where there is no basis for doing so.Continue reading
More than 650,000 people have visited the online price monitoring website since its launch on July 1, the President of the Hungarian Competition Authority said on Kossuth Radio.
Csaba Balázs Rigó remarked that the first day of the system was “very promising,” with more than 230,000 clicks on the site, and the interest has not decreased since.
In the period since the launch, visitors have downloaded data 48 million times and launched 264,000 keyword searches on the portal.
He explained that the prices of 62 basic food products are sent daily by some 1,200 shops of the six chains that are obliged to give data, and that the platform allows customers to decide which product of the same quality and at the best price is the one they want to buy.
While the government is phasing out the food price freeze that has been in place for 1.5 years, they are extending the mandatory promotion to the product groups concerned. The promotion currently covers poultry meat, pork and beef, fish and canned fish, meat products, milk, sour cream and substitutes, yogurt and other fermented preparations, several dairy products, cheese, butter, margarine and its preparations, other fats and oils, bread, pastry, dry pasta, rice, cereals, flour, sugar and preserved flour products, fresh vegetables, fresh fruit, fruit and vegetable juices, prepared meals, spices, condiments, coffee, tea, mineral waters, and soft drinks.
From August, the mandatory promotions will be extended to include granulated sugar, wheat flour, sunflower cooking oil, pork thighs, chicken breast and tail, 2.8 percent UHT milk, eggs, and eating potatoes.
The price monitoring system has launched a fierce daily price competition between traders, with food inflation down by two percentage points since its introduction, according to calculations by the Ministry of Economic Development,
underlined Csaba Balázs Rigó.
The President of the Hungarian Competition Authority pointed out that since January, the retail sector has suffered a double-digit drop in sales and demand due to inflation, and it is therefore in the interest of the sector to use the free online price monitor to reduce food prices and mitigate the extent of the loss of money. He pointed out that
while it is not a reality that consumer prices will return to, for example, October 2021 levels, a small reduction in food prices and the expected single-digit inflation by the end of the year could restore real wage growth and presumably demand.
Rigó added that it makes sense to develop and expand the system, and given the price competition, it is worth considering which product categories could be further included in the monitored product range, such as household goods.
He stressed that the competition from the six retail chains will affect smaller retailers, i.e. almost the whole sector, which are constantly watching the system because of market competition, and this will indirectly have a positive impact on price reductions and inflation. This price competition is certainly good for consumers, and the role of the Hungarian Competition Authority is to promote and encourage competition through the tools provided by the law and other voluntary tasks it has undertaken, he emphasized.
Via MTI, Featured photo via Pixabay
