The Minister of Economy and Labor Besar Durmishi together with the Deputy Minister of Economy and Labor Marjan Risteski and inspectors from the State Market Inspectorate visited two bookstores in Skopje today, where they inspected the implementation of the Government's measure "Less costs, more for you" which reduced margins on school accessories.
"The Ministry of Economy and Labor and the Government, in order to help the citizens to improve the standard of living and reduce costs, last week made a decision to freeze the margin on school accessories to 10% in retail trade and 5% in trade wholesale. The purpose of this measure is to reduce the prices of school supplies, and to reduce the costs of households, especially those families who have students. Today, together with inspectors from the State Market Inspectorate, we came and visited two bookstores in Skopje to see how this measure is applied. As you can see, the prices of the school accessories that were included in our list have drastically reduced prices," said Minister Durmishi after visiting the bookstores.
As Durmishi said, according to the information on the ground from the inspectors, for the time being, the measure is respected by the wholesalers and retailers and no non-compliance has been established.
"Inspectors will continue with their surveillance in the field in order to ensure full compliance with the measure not only here in the capital, but also throughout the country," Durmishi said.
The Minister also informed that in order to meet the citizens, tomorrow by the end of the day, the Ministry of Economy and Labor in cooperation with the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Finance will prepare a list of products that will be included in autumn consumption basket - a list of about 100 essential food products (agricultural and food).
"The working group will conduct a simulation to limit either the prices or the margins of these 100 products. So, calculations will be made by reducing margins to 5%, 10% or 15% of retail trade or freezing prices at a certain level. The simulation should provide information which will be the most favorable solution for final prices for consumers and what will be the fiscal implications of this measure. The proposal and simulation of this autumn consumption basket will be submitted to the Government at the next session and we will make a decision to reduce the prices of these essential food products for the final consumers," said Minister Durmishi.
The Minister noted that this autumn consumption basket in the coming period will continue to be applied in the form of Christmas consumption basket, Ramadan consumption basket, Easter consumption basket with changes to the list of products that will be covered depending on the period in which it will be applied.
"At the same time, I want to inform you that the Law on Unfair Trade Practices remains in force and the rebate and additional costs from the list of 2.548 tariff numbers of agricultural and food products in retail and wholesale trade will be limited to 10% starting from September 28 , as previously determined by the Law. We are committed to providing the best for our citizens and our country. It is achieved with concrete work and actions," said Durmishi.