Up to 10 percent increase prices of several articles in Kosovo

For a liter of sunflower oil, citizens are now paying an average of 25 cents more than a year ago. Besides oil, prices have been expensive for other consumer products such as flour, rice, eggs, tobacco, firewood, and derivatives. So says the Kosovo Statistics Agency report of March, where, compared to the same period last year, consumer prices have increased 1.2 percent.

The overall harmonised consumption prices <x0). This is largely explained with the rise of consumer prices in this sub-group period: bread and cereals (2.5%), milk, cheese and eggs (2.5%), oils and fats (10.3%), water, nonalcoholic drinks, juices from trees and vegetables (1.3%), alcoholic beverages (2.5%), tobacco (4,6%)”, said, among other things, in the ASS report.

According to university professor Musa Limani, price hikes have occurred as a result of the negative impact the pandemic has had globally on the economy.

“In Kosovo's economy inflation is imported because somewhere up to 80 percent of material goods are imported from other countries. So, as it is known, due to the existing epidemic, the economic crisis has overtaken all countries, so in the case of importing goods, we import inflation, respectively, the rising of” prices, he said.

Although Kosovo's economy is based on free market economy, Limani has stressed that there must be immediate state interventions, whether with the setting of prices for basic food products, whether by inspection or even state reserves. On the contrary, Limani says price hikes will add to the standard of life in Kosovo.

“Inflation is negatively expressed in the country's economic development and affects the reduction of the population's living standards. Therefore inflation, respectively, is a negative element or factor in economic development. If it continues further with price hikes, normally they will be expressed in slowing economic processes and in Kosovo's economic development”, he has declared.

And according to former head of the Kosovo Economic Ode, Safet Gerxhaliu, the price increase generation has come since March last year, when even the pandemic has emerged. He says that the expensive cost of a 20-30-euro family basket for the same products is catastrophic for citizens who, in addition to being affected by pandemic, have not had enough state aid.

“Citizens are noticing a silent increase in prices, particularly basic products per life. The generation of this rise is definitely 2020 in March, when the COVID pandemic -- which has occurred an uncontrolled increase in prices” -- has declared Gerjaliu.

According to him, there are a series of chain effects that have affected price hikes, among them he says there is a global market disorder because of the decline in productivity from pandemic, but also the closure of the Suez Canal for several days that have generated losses and delays in product supply.

It is an attempt by businesses that, for the sake of strict closure and business measures, try to exploit this moment in a short time to create higher profits to minimize losses in the time scale caused by COVID-19. But all this is an additional obligation for institutions to have inspectors, to have monitor”, he said.