Skopje, 14 February 2025 (MIA) — Grocery retailers and government representatives met Friday to discuss ways of helping tackle the rising cost of living – but whether grocers' profits will be capped remains to be seen, the Ministry of Economy and Labor said in a press release.

Minister of Economy and Labor Besar Durmishi, his deputy Marjan Risteski, State Market Inspectorate head Vlatko Stojkoski and Competition Protection Commission members met with representatives of the wholesale, retail and grocery industry to hear their opinions and proposals, the release said.

Meeting participants included Reptil representative Danica Blazhevska, who said grocery retailers proposed that prices of only 100 or 200 grocery items be capped.

"We are asking that the large number of products covered by the measure be reduced to 100 or 200 that are truly essential," she said.

"Now it covers over 1,000 products. This creates problems for us in our daily price controls and in getting better prices from producers and suppliers."

She said another problem was that sometimes price labels "are removed or fall out," which posed "a high risk for us if inspectors come by and find out there are no marked prices."

Following the Friday meeting, the Ministry of Economy said the grocers' proposals woud be reviewed before the government decided on any price caps on grocery items. "It was agreed at the meeting that the final decision would be made next week," the release said.

In response to the two consumers' grocery store boycotts spurred by the rising cost of living crisis, which were held on Jan. 31 and Feb. 7, the government had said the Ministry of Economy would draft a plan to set maximum gross profit margins of 10 percent on basic food products.

The plan was to include the 73 essential items covered in previous so-called "consumer basket" government price-control measures. The market intervention was to be expanded to detergents, baby formula and other essential non-food products with high profit margins, as well.

The decision was based on a six-month report from the State Market Inspectorate that showed grocers' profit margins reached over 20 percent on basic food products and over 30 percent on personal hygiene products. The report said that importers and distributors had even higher profit margins, some of them as high as 50 percent. mr/