Minister Bogdan Bogdanov: "Affordable for you" creates a competitive environment that will lead to lower prices

The Minister of Economy and Industry, Bogdan Bogdanov, initiated a meeting with the leadership of the Commission for the Protection of Competition in order to reach a consensus regarding the initiative of the Ministry of Economy "Affordable for you". The letter to the Commission was sent yesterday and a reply is awaited.

"We want to find out what are the legal arguments of the CPC against the initiative, the sole purpose of which is to achieve better prices for Bulgarian consumers, formed on a market principle," said Minister Bogdanov.

"We expect the Campaign to launch as planned on November 1. We are confident that it will include a large number of the chains with which we held initial meetings. Interest was also expressed from non-food chains," he added. The aim of the next stage is to include regional as well as smaller chains in the campaign.

Minister Bogdanov's initiative for a dialogue with the CPC aims to familiarize its members with "Affordable for you" and with the arguments of the Ministry of Economy in favor of consumers in the country.

The Ministry of Economy and Industry believes that the initiative is market-oriented, which contributes to improving the production or distribution of goods. The proposed Partnership Declaration is not signed between certain economic operators and does not meet the requirements under Art. 15, concerning a cartel agreement, and the following texts of the Law on Protection of Competition (LPC) on prohibited agreements. In the law, there are a number of exceptions to the prohibition of market agreements of economic operators, to which the initiative could be classified (eg an agreement with an insignificant effect on competition under Article 16, paragraph 1 of the law).

The subject of the initiative is the lowest and not the undercut prices, in this sense possible dumping is not expected. The Ministry of Economy and Industry also does not accept the reasoning that "Affordable for you" can lead to lower prices of participating goods in the initiative at the expense of others outside of it. Such a danger exists with all promotions and price discounts that are applied even now and the establishment of such possible violations is subject to checks in each specific case.

There should also be no concerns about violating the principle of free economic initiative, insofar as participation in the initiative is voluntary and is not tied to any sanctions or privileges for the participants.

The Affordable for You initiative is market driven and aims to achieve sustained low prices on 50 essential products. The campaign must ensure consumer awareness and accessibility to the basic food products from the small consumer basket, by offering them at the lowest possible prices, based on the principles of competition, without having a negative impact on other participants in economic relations.

The initiative is in partnership with businesses and covers the provision of seven product groups from the small consumer basket, meeting the quality requirements and containing all the necessary ingredients for a healthy lifestyle.