The Prime Minister of Georgia, Irakli Kobakhidze, met with representatives of distribution companies in the format of the current Government Coordination Commission regarding the prices of food products.
At today’s meeting of the Commission, attended by representatives of the distribution companies, the Georgian PM said that it is important for us to balance the interests of business and population. We want all of us to look after the interests of the population and to try as much as possible to bring down prices.
As he mentioned, according to the preliminary survey, the price increase in Georgia is an average of 86%, which is quite a high indicator, and the purpose of the commission is to determine how the price chain works and where there is space for price reduction through discussion with relevant parties. “We are interested, I saw personally, for example, in Germany, the price increase from wholesale to shelf is 20 to 30%, meaning this is the standard price increase. 86% looks pretty high under these conditions. One share of this 86% comes from distribution – 44% is a share and a relatively small share in the case of network markets,” he added.
Irakli Kobakhidze noted,” In total, it is 86%, which means that there are much higher prices compared to European prices in Georgia. In some cases, the price is 50% higher, twice or three times the price, which means there is quite a big difference between prices. When a business operates on its own vision, it naturally has many upsides, but it also includes a social factor, which is no less important for us. We need to balance these interests as much as possible, and we all want to care about the interests of the population and try as much as possible to keep prices down.”
These types of meetings are important for the government to get information directly from the sector, where they are seeing the problems and resources to reduce prices.
It is also worth noting that the representatives of up to 15 distribution companies attended the commission meeting with the head of the Distributors Business Association. From next week, similar meetings will be held with manufacturers of food products, as well as pharmaceutical products, and fuel prices.
