All products processed in Romania will qualify for the capping of the markups, and an ordinance to that end will be soon put up for public debate and then approved by the government, Agriculture Minister Florin Barbu told a news conference on Tuesday.

„I can’t give you an exact deadline because it has to be transparent. There are certain legal procedures, we have to take an opinion from the Legislative Council, there are a lot of opinions that have to be taken on this ordinance. It has to go through all the ministries: the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Economy, the Ministry of Justice. I can’t tell you when (…) We are talking about tens of thousands of products indeed, about all the products processed in Romania,” Barbu said after being asked when the ordinance on capping the markups on all Romanian products will come into force.

Barbu said that the draft ordinance is 90% completed, and currently it is necessary for retailers and processors to make an evaluation on certain products.

„I am convinced that I will have the power, as minister of agriculture, to convince them that the recovery of the food industry and this ordinance that we want to issue is part of the general package of processing in Romania (…) I will try to convince the retail system in Romania, the processors in Romania and the farmers in Romania that this ordinance is beneficial to the entire agri-food chain.”

In Barbu’s opinion, the market will not be destabilised after the capping of the markups on thousands of products.

„I am not afraid at all that the market will be destabilised, because when the Ministry of Agriculture made the first ordinance transparent, many economic analysts, many retailers, said that there would be a shortage of food, that the ordinance would not produce its effects, but it produced effects, which was said by the Competition Council. Moreover, the sale of these products has doubled, inflation in Romania in the agri-food system was somewhere around 10.8 – 10.9%, and at the moment it is almost 4.5%.”

Barbu added that from the data it holds, the profit of retailers and processors has increased from the year when the capping ordinance was not in force.

„At the end of the financial year, I will make an analysis of the profitability of the processors, and also of the retailers that were integrated into the markup capping ordinance,” he said.

AGERPRES