More bad news for consumers as bread goes up ten cents

MORE BAD news emerged for consumers yesterday as bakeries announced a ten cents increase in the price of bread, and that’s only the beginning.
Lakis Savvides, the chairman of the bakers’ association said they had no choice but to raise their prices slightly to cover the costs of electricity and labour, which have gone up.
“The increase does not exceed 10 cents,” Savvides said. “If we had imposed a full increase (in accordance with the hikes in energy and labour), bread would have gone up by 15 or 20 cents.”
But there is more bad news for consumers.
“I understand that flour producers will impose new – dramatically high prices – by early September as the rest of the world,” Savvides said.
He added that prices of bakery products elsewhere have gone up by up to 30 per cent.
“We will see what increases there would be and automatically readjust our prices because no one can absorb such hikes on their own,” Savvides said.
Hikes are also expected in the price of poultry.
“A 30-cent increase should be expected,” the poultry association chairman Pavlos Paradisiotis said.
He stressed that producers are forced to do so to cover the additional costs.
The current market price ranges between €3.60 and €3.90 per kilo, depending on the point of sale, Paradisiotis said.
He said the last increase in the price of chicken was three years ago.
As consumers were left to digest the new pricing on basic products, the government and the opposition exchanged barbs over who was to blame.
Responding to opposition criticism, government spokesman Stefanos Stefanou said the government was taking all necessary measures – within the framework defined by the EU — to protect consumers.
The spokesman rejected suggestions that Cyprus had the highest electricity and fuel prices in the EU.
“There is no need to cause people panic and make shameless charges that Cyprus is the most expensive country for various products,” Stefanou said.
He reiterated that the government had requested from the European Commission, permission to set a cap on basic products including milk, the price of which is also high.
DISY vice chairman Lefteris Christoforou called the government’s policy “irresponsible” and said it resulted in consumers being left unprotected.
“The price of the irresponsible government policy regarding prices and its ineffectiveness are paid daily by Cypriot consumers,” Christoforou said.
He said DISY has repeatedly suggested to the government to appoint a consumer commissioner who will monitor the market and create a protection net for consumers.
Socialists EDEK urged the government to intervene and ask for the sellers to justify their hikes and name and shame them if they fail to do so.

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