The head of the Competition Council says that capping food prices no longer makes sense. “I hope it's the last”

The President of the Competition Council, Bogdan Chiriţoiu, is of the opinion that the food price ceiling measure should not be extended, because it no longer has an impact, and the market has learned to adapt and other products have become more expensive, according to Agerpres.

“For food, the capping has been extended until spring. I hope it's the last capping, even if it will coincide with the liberalization of gas. So, I'm afraid of another discussion 'right now let's give up the capping when, here, we liberalize gas. Even if spring comes and the world is no longer heated with gas, the price of gas will still rise and right now you wake up to remove the cap on food'. We'll see. I'm thinking about the speech you gave let's hear it in February. We don't know if it will increase or not, but I would like to convince the Coalition now, to have come up with an exit plan. We will extend the ceiling for six months, because the Ministry of Agriculture has prepared a plan B do. Maybe we don't put anything in place of the ceiling, let the market regulate itself and see what happens or we come up with a plan B”, said Chiriţoiu.

He claimed that this measure of capping the prices of some foods no longer has an effect, because retailers have adapted and learned how to circumvent the various restrictions imposed by the Government.

“This capping measure has already been around for some time. If it made sense, it made sense in the beginning. Now, as time goes by, it makes less sense, that is, you don't see any impact after all. Some prices have fallen, but others have increased, so the market also adapts. The first time companies are taken by surprise, so for a few months you have an effect, but after a while the world learns how to adapt, how to bypass the various restrictions of the Government and we have seen that the prices of other products have increased. In the end, the effect is neutral overall for the typical consumer, and if we want to target poor consumers, maybe we have other tools to reach those who are poorer”, said the head of the competition authority.

The liberalization of the RCA market, the only real success

Bogdan Chiriţoiu added that the only success so far is the liberalization of the RCA market.

“The ceiling that kept expanding at RCA was withdrawn and things are going ok. Well, we see that the price of RCA did not explode, we see on average a fairly small increase with resettlement. Some companies increased, (…) others decreased, but we see increases in certain types of policies, decreases in certain types of policies, so somewhere it seems that the market is behaving normally and things are settling down”, he concluded.

The Competition Council and the Federation of Construction Societies Employers (FPSC) organized on Saturday, in Sinaia, the “Competitive challenges in the construction sector” conference.