Hungarian government deploys new weapon to reduce inflation

Hungary is introducing an online price monitoring system to increase transparency, boost competition and bring inflation down, the Competition Office (GVH) and the Economic Development Ministry said on Thursday.

Economic Development Minister Márton Nagy supported the proposal by GVH chairman Csaba Balázs Rigó to set up the database of prices that can be monitored by consumers, preventing overpricing. The system, initially focusing on food products, is scheduled to come online at the end of June and is expected to help bring down inflation to the single digits by year-end.

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The GVH is conducting a number of fast-track sector inquiries in the food sector, Portfolio reports. On 20 January, it opened investigations into milk and dairy products. On 8 February, investigations started into the market for durable food products.

In parallel with these studies, related international initiatives have been assessed. It has been found that several European competition authorities (e.g. Austrian, Finnish, Greek, Dutch, Portuguese, Romanian, Swedish) are actively addressing the phenomenon of food price increases. It was also found that several EU Member States (e.g. Greece, Germany, Romania) have governments or authorities that use various price monitoring and price reporting applications.

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Source: MTI, Portfolio.hu