Commercial allowance for staple foods, capped for another 60 days

Yesterday, the government decided to extend by another 60 days the measure of capping the commercial addition to basic foods, a measure established for the first time last year by GEO 67/2023. By the normative act adopted yesterday, the annex of GEO 67/2023 was also amended, in the sense in which rice - round grain - weighing between 0.5 and 1.5 kg, cozonac, tomato broth, margarine, yeast, minced meat and added butter up to 250 grams and butter up to 350 grams. In addition, the provision was introduced by which the agricultural and food products provided in the annex, used as raw materials in the production, processing, processing and which are the subject of commercial relations between the producer and the processor, were exempted from the application of the provisions of this emergency ordinance.

After the government meeting, Florin Barbu, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, said: "The government adopted today the extension of the measure to limit the commercial addition practiced on the processing, distribution, marketing chain for basic foods. The government took this decision because the measure has proven its effectiveness from all points of view. Thus we stopped speculative price increases, eliminated one of the main sources of general inflation, protected the purchasing power of Romanians with low and medium incomes. We also see today that this measure did not affect Romanian producers and did not cause disruptions or shortages in the Romanian food market. Moreover, it is seen today that many of those who criticized the original approach now support the need for the extension. I had a dialogue with the representatives of the traders and I want to thank them once again for the effort they are making to support this good measure for Romanians. We have agreed to extend the measure by 60 days and through dialogue with traders we have made some changes to the list of products benefiting from a limited commercial allowance. Thus, for some products on the list, this measure is raised. I mean margarine, cake, broth, yeast, rice and minced meat. They are products that were included before the winter holidays, precisely because their consumption is higher during this period. They are products for which, from practice, it is found that the prices have stabilized. I have included traditional butter and magiun in the list. We took this measure because we found that, for these foods, the final price is significantly higher than the price at the factory gate".

The Minister of Agriculture also stated that by this measure Romanian producers are protected against some imported products of lower quality.

Florin Barbu specified: "At the same time, we want to protect Romanian producers against some lower quality imported products. I am referring here to magiun, which is found to have a very high commercial addition, which makes this product without added sugar extremely uncompetitive with similar imported products that have a very high added sugar. We have agreed with traders and processors that in the next period we will start a price verification mechanism that will involve you and state institutions, so as to ensure that in the long term there will be no more speculative price increases, as happened before the introduction of this measure. When this mechanism will be functional, we will have the guarantee that it is no longer necessary to intervene through a normative act".

We remind you that by Emergency Ordinance no. 67/2023 regarding the establishment of a temporary measure to combat the excessive increase in prices of some agricultural and food products, the temporary measure to combat the excessive increase in prices of some agricultural and food products was introduced by limiting, for a period of 90 days, of the commercial additions practiced in the processing, distribution and marketing of these products. Later, by Emergency Ordinance no. 89/2023, the application period was extended until 31.01.2024, being added to the initial list of 14 basic food products, 7 more, among which was the cozonac.

Through the normative act, the commercial surcharge was capped at 20% for retailers and 5% for the entire distribution chain.