At the presentation of the new government measure on Thursday, Prime Minister Miloš Vučević announced that around 80 products will have the "best price" label and that they will be available in stores that will sell them.
The word about food and products for personal and household chemistry, such as meat, apples, onions, coffee, fish, shampoos, toilet paper and the like.
He also mentioned the specific products and their new prices and pointed out that the discount is on average 26,82 percent and that households will be able to save from eight to 22.000 dinars.
Vučević said that many other measures are being prepared to help the citizens and pointed out that the Government must take care of the citizens first and foremost and that the problem is if the traders make extra profit on them.
"Clearly mark discounted prices"
Professor of the Faculty of Economics, Galjina Ognjanov, said today, on the occasion of the price reduction action in retail sales announced by the Government of Serbia, that she fears whether everything will be crystal clear and visible and clear to consumers and whether they will be able to notice the announced price differences.
She added that she is not sure that it is something significantly more compared to what they have been able to get at retail outlets.
"Retail trade chains have had promotional offers and discounts for consumers and that the state has already had such an action once under the slogan "Bolja cena", she reminded.
"This is not the first time, and before that there was a 'Bolja cena' action, and during the duration of that action, I did notice products with that label in retail stores, but not essentially much cheaper compared to what would normally be at a retail action," she noted. Ognainov.
She states that, in any case, it is better for citizens to have greater opportunities, especially at a time when many of them still have low purchasing power.
""A sign that the government has problems"
The program director of the economic research network Libek, Mihailo Gajić, assessed today that measures, such as a list of products with reduced prices in stores, are used when the government has some problems and when its popularity is declining.
"Probably, these protests about lithium are one of the reasons for such a measure," Gajić told FoNet.
He also pointed out that - if traders reduce the margins for products from the list of the Government of Serbia - this, on the other hand, does not mean that they cannot raise the margins for other products they sell and thus preserve their profits.
Gajić, however, noted that the reductions will mean something to consumers and their budgets, but that they will not affect the inflation rate itself, because it is about a relatively small number of products.
"It will not have any macro consequences on inflation, it will not have a noticeable impact on the inflation rate as such." It measures around 2.000 equivalent goods and services," Gajić noted.
He reminds that these measures, however, are not an exclusively Serbian prescription.
"We have had these and similar measures in the last two years from Croatia, Hungary and even to France and Great Britain," said Gajić, assessing that this is a broader European wave that was caused primarily by inflation, which from 2021 was first a consequence of covid , and then the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
The prices of 81 product categories will be reduced from September 1 to October 31 this year in more than 2.500 retail stores in Serbia.
