The minister of Development Kostis Hadzidakis called for lowering prices in the supermarkets, which should reach two digit percentages. He managed to tie down nine of the biggest supermarket chains to start applying this new solution from the beginning of April.

The list with the price reduction of every supermarket chain will be ready next week. The list will include the products, the reduction percentage and the duration. The minister explained that the discounted products will be foods and everyday use products, for which people spend most of their family budgets. Those categories include dairy products, cheeses, olive oil, corn oil, pasta, bean products, coffee, soda, cleaning products, etc. “Consumers will feel the discounts from their pockets…We are not talking about discounts according to category or products – everything will depend on policy of each firm,” explained Mr. Hadzidakis and made it clear that the discounts will be a fact before Easter.

The Minister announced that in the following days Minister Georgos Vlahis will meet representatives of the nine supermarket chains, in order to specify some details about the agreement. He also promised that there will be a very strict control over those supermarkets, in order to be sure that the agreement is being executed correctly.

Last week Mr. Hadzidakis made a detail offer to the industrialists in the food sector, who had a common meeting but did not receive a positive answer.

A research on the development of the food industry during 2008 done by the Economic and Industrial Researched Institute showed that this sector is the least affected by the economic crisis in comparison to any other sector in the industry. Production has increased with 1.2% and despite this, food product factories have cut down its investments by 23% and their personnel by 5%. Prices have gone up with 6.9%, but since October there an opposite trend because the prices of wheat and bean products have decreased.

According to a research on consumer firms, from 15 checked products, the prices of 11 have increased with 34% and the rest four have decreased the price with 2.7% the most.

On the meeting with Mr. Hadzidakis there were representatives of the following supermarket chains: Vasilopoulos, Veropoulos, Sklavenitis, Galaxias, Thanopoulos, Atlantik, Masoutis, Veroukas, Bazar, and Carrefour.