The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Florin Barbu, declared on Tuesday that the elimination of the cap on the trade mark-up for basic foodstuffs will lead to inflation of approximately 15% by December.

„Since 2023, when I took over the portfolio of the Ministry of Agriculture, I have come up with this mechanism for capping the trade mark-up. The data is published by the National Institute of Statistics. In December 2022, inflation was somewhere around 15.5%. In 2023, when we introduced the capping of the trade mark-up on food, but also the capping on energy, inflation reached somewhere around 6.5%. In 2024, this mechanism for capping the mark-up brought inflation of only 5.5%. Let’s look at what inflation is at the moment and I tell you honestly that eliminating the capping of the mark-up will lead to inflation by December of almost 15%”, Barbu told a press conference.

Asked how much basic products would become more expensive, specifically, if the cap were eliminated, Barbu stated: „There are several factors that lead to an increase in shelf prices. On the one hand, the energy consumed by processors, the elimination of the cap on the mark-up, because until 2023 we had a mark-up of 100% on certain agri-food products, we have data from the Competition Council that clearly shows us that since this mechanism regarding the cap on the mark-up was introduced, prices have decreased by percentages between 7 and 33%.”

Florin Barbu mentioned that a meeting of the governing coalition will take place on Wednesday in which the interim president of the PSD, Sorin Grindeanu, will make available all the data regarding the impact that the cap on the mark-up had on basic products.

„I am sure that if the measure is not approved by the governing coalition, my fellow senators, because the ordinance is in the Senate, will submit an amendment to extend the capping of the mark-up and we will take this draft normative act to the Romanian Parliament,” the minister of agriculture also said.

AGERPRES