If the business does not normalize the prices, the compensation should go to the end users, suggests Vanya Grigorov from CT "Podkrepa"

If the authorities fail to get the businesses, and especially the resellers, to normalize prices, then they should think about the compensations that are given to the businesses, to go to the end users. This was commented in "Hello, Bulgaria" by Vanya Grigorova, an economic expert at the Podkrepa CT.

Food inflation is still high. She specified that even when the average inflation is increasing at a slower pace, that of food continues to increase intensively. "There were many reasons for the increase in food prices last year. But the specula is terribly big", Grigorova also pointed out.

According to Dobrin Ivanov from AICB, the markets in Bulgaria are highly competitive and there are many sellers, which suggests that there will be a competitive price fight to conquer markets. "The reasons for the price increase are objective. We are not seeing an increase in just one group of goods or services, but in the market as a whole. We have a fundamental reason - the price of energy carriers and fuels", he emphasized.

Ivanov explained that already in the middle of 2021, price growth at producers began. "This growth, at the beginning of 2022, reached 40% and towards the middle it passed 48%. It transferred to finished products to a lesser extent. That is, the increase in prices is expected, and the reasons are objective", said the AICB representative.

He announced that they are calling for business to be socially and socially responsible when energy and fuel prices start to fall. "If product prices are not reduced, if they remain at these levels, inflation may fall by at least 10% by the middle of the year. The mere holding of prices would imply a reduction in inflation - to reach 7-8%", Ivanov pointed out.