THE CYPRUS Consumers’ Association (CCA) intends to carry out market surveys that will highlight companies that profiteer in the retail market, its chairman Petros Markou said yesterday.
Markou asked Commerce Minister Nicos Rolandis to convene the Consumers Consultative Committee to consider the need to protect consumers against unwarranted price increases.
The CCA plans to meet with trade unions and the Cyprus Chamber of Commerce and Industry to discuss the subject of rising prices in certain areas. Markou said the CCA was most concerned about price increases in the food industry, restaurant business and some services.
“Consumers have made general complaints mostly in these areas, but we want to prepare a scientific study to substantiate and document them first before we name names,” said Markou.
The CCA has in the past made comparative price surveys of various companies in the market, receiving a good response from consumers who read the results, said Markou. “We take various companies in the market, like supermarkets, choose identical products and compare their prices. The quality of the service offered is also taken into account, such as shelving and the existence of air conditioning units.”
He maintained that the magnitude of the problem needed to be established so that preventive measures could be taken and where necessary prices reduced to permissible levels. “Some price rises are legitimate given the recent increase in consumer taxes but companies that go beyond that need to be checked,” he said. The market surveys will be carried out within the next three weeks. “Consumers need to be fully informed of what is going on around them,” said Markou.
He pointed out one way to express dissatisfaction at an unacceptable state of affairs was to boycott the whole market for a day, like Greek consumers have arranged for September 3, but added that this would only happen in Cyprus as a last resort.
A Commerce Ministry official noted that liberalisation of the market meant that consumers had the power to affect prices in a competitive market.
Permanent Secretary of the Small Shopkeepers Association (POVEK), Melios Georgiou, said that no significant price rise on items had been noticed. He added that it was against shopkeepers’ interests to raise prices above VAT increases because they had to keep prices competitive.
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
