Hungarian minister’s threat: unless traders reduce prices, food price caps will return
“We are working to reduce food prices!” – the national economy minister said on his Facebook page after his talks with representatives of the National Trade Association (OKSz) on food prices on Friday.
The minister confirmed the government’s commitment to protecting Hungarian families and pensioners from inflation, therefore, they are monitoring food prices and, if necessary, will intervene immediately.
“Keeping the interests of families in mind, we do not rule out any options or measures, including the reintroduction of mandatory price caps,” Nagy said.
Food price monitoring system to be extended
Nagy suggested in his Facebook post that the food prices in Hungary depend solely on the decisions of the traders, not on market processes. Critics of the Hungarian government say that the previous interventions, including food price caps, worsened the food price inflation generated by the 2022 pre-election government money distributions and the Russian invasion of Ukraine in the first place.
Nagy highlighted that the government would like to protect Hungarian families and pensioners, and they would like to ease the burden of buying basic food products for all Hungarian families. Therefore, he said they would expand the unique Hungarian (food) price monitoring system introduced in summer 2023. The system will follow the price changes of 100 food products, including basic foods like fish, coffee, tea, rice, sour cream, beef, cocoa powder and bread rolls.
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