Speculation with prices before the euro? The National Revenue Agency reports up to 40% increase in prices

All goods and products in the small consumer basket, including water, bread, meat, cheese, eggs, sour and fresh milk, etc., have risen in price in the last two weeks.

This was established by inspectors from the National Revenue Agency (NRA), who began checks for speculation in shops on June 3 in connection with Bulgaria's imminent entry into the eurozone.

The price increases vary, with the minimum being between 5 - 25% for dairy products, and a specific type of cow's cheese has also risen by 25%. In some retail chains, the price of water has risen by 40%. The data is for the period June 3-17.

The results show that the prices of various goods have risen by different percentages, but all are up. My opinion is that there is no economic factor that could explain the 40% increase over the last two weeks," said Rumen Spetsov, executive director of the National Revenue Agency, on btv.

Economic.bg recalls that at the beginning of the month, a number of regulators, including the National Revenue Agency (NRA), the Consumer Protection Commission (CPC), and the Commission for Protection of Competition (CPC), launched inspections of stores. At the time, the three agencies were adamant that they would be relentless in their pursuit of any unjustified price increases after Brussels gave a positive assessment of Bulgaria's readiness for the eurozone on June 4.

However, Spetsov assured that 800 people were involved in the store inspections.“There are enough employees to convince retailers to return food prices to their June 1 levels,” said the head of the National Revenue Agency.

Fears of price increases due to the eurozone are justified. But if anyone doubts that we will not be able to carry out these checks, they are deeply mistaken,“ said the director of the National Revenue Agency.

According to him, the increase has nothing to do with inflation and is ”pure speculation."

Translated with DeepL.