The price of the average consumer basket reached three thousand three hundred marks. Fuel prices have already risen, and the question of the day is when the chain reaction will occur. Are new price increases coming?
When the price of fuel rises, there is a chain increase in the price of basic foodstuffs. But when the price of fuel on the stock market falls, there is no cheapening of basic foodstuffs. Consumer associations warn of the latest trend of manufacturers and retailers.
“In fact, if, for example, reduce of your chocolate that was 100 grams to 70, it means that there is 30% less product, and the same money is taken. Which actually means that the price of that product has increased by 30%”, says Jovan Vasilić, president of the Zvono Bijeljina Consumers’ Association.
First on the list for price increases are bakery products. Domestic wheat production is only 30 percent, while the remaining 70 percent is wheat imported from the region, mostly from the old commodity reserves of Hungary and Serbia, bought at significantly lower prices than those currently prevailing on the world market. Therefore, it is not clear on what basis the price of bread is rising.
“Bakers are speculating about the situation, at this price of wheat, a loaf of bread should not be more expensive than the brand. It has never happened that 100 kg of wheat costs the same as one bag of flour. And that will now be reflected in the autumn sowing”, warns Savo Bakajlić, president of the Association of Agricultural Associations of Bosnia and Herzegovina
“Bakers take advantage of the opportunity to launch a new product every time, and then raise the price, and that’s it. And we told them that the price of flour has now fallen compared to before, and that we have not seen anywhere that the price of bread has become cheaper,” Vasilić points out.
Since the last increase in oil prices in the RS last week, prices, according to bakers, have not been corrected. And for the next period it is difficult to forecast.
“For now, the prices remain as they are, I hope that there will be no increase in prices. As for price corrections, the difference in the price of flour in the previous period went to workers’ wages,” says Radenko Pelemiš, president of the Association of Bakers of the Bijeljina region.
Wheat, as a strategic product, this year in the largest BiH granary did not give the expected yield or quality. Farmers are not even thinking about the autumn sowing of bread grain, which is just around the corner, because, they say, production is no longer profitable.
“We are left to our own sources, there is a long struggle to protect domestic production at the level of Bosnia and Herzegovina, we don’t have blue diesel, we don’t have anything, this is a disaster for agriculture,” Bakajlić said bitterly.
Farmers are asking the competent entity authorities to follow the example of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the demands of farmers have been met so far. In the RS until then, the “Socially Responsible” campaign. In some markets, citizens will buy some products at lower prices because local producers and traders have agreed to give up their profits. The list of items that will be sold with a zero percent margin will be defined in the coming days.
