Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Trade, Tourism and Telecommunications Rasim Ljajić said that the government’s economic measures will not affect the increase in living standards, and that he does not expect significant disruption to the market.

 
He said that there was no reason to for an increase in basic food items, pointing out that there is still no decision on increasing the price of gas and electricity.

Speaking as a guest on RTS, Ljajić said that the most important thing is to prevent a rise in the price of basic foodstuffs, and there is no reason for that to happen in view of the good agricultural year and good yield of almost all crops.

“The purchasing power is already so small and traders certainly take that into consideration when defining the price of and margins on basic agricultural and food products”, said Ljajić. In an answer to the question of whether citizens are should expect higher prices of gas and electricity, Ljajić said that there has not been a decision so far with regard to that matter.

Asked if he expected that retailers to reduce the prices of certain products, Ljajić said that the economic logic go in favor of the fact that traders will surely reconsider the amount of margins on certain products, because that way they could keep the current level of retail sales.

“Whether this will happen is hard to predict at the moment, but I would not be surprised if it happens” said Ljajić.

He pointed out that it is true that the purchasing power of the population is low, even though the statistics in the first seven months of this year show an increase of 2.5 percent in retail sales.

As he pointed out, given that the proposed economic measures protect the most vulnerable population and those with the lowest incomes, significant disturbances are not expected when talking about the supply and prices of basic food products.

“The analysis that we conducted showed that those with the lowest incomes, including most of the pensioners, mainly buy domestic goods, so there will be no significant disorder when it comes to domestic producers of food and basic agricultural and food products”, said Ljajić.

He added that the proposed economic measures are only meaningful if they are implemented on the revenue side of the budget as well and therefore we must increase production, exports, economic competitiveness and productivity.

“This model is painful, but will surely to the recovery of the economy”, emphasized Ljajić.