The Government announced that it is ending its program of energy subsidies for food producing companies and is limiting the price of white and semi-white bread in loaves of 450 grams to 33 denars per loaf. The move was announced today by Prime Minister Dimitar Kovacevski and Economy Minister Kreshnik Bekteshi, after the Government blamed the industrial bakeries of taking the subsidies but refusing to reduce their prices.

I will not allow unjustified hikes of food prices. Sufficient time passed since the last package of crisis measures was adopted and the prices should have been corrected. The help from the Government was timely and realistic. Even though the food companies received subsidized energy, they did not reduce the prices of their products, or reduced them for a negligible amount. Some reduced the prices beteen 7 to 12 percent. So, today we are ending the program of energy subsidies and we are freezing the price of bread, Kovacevski said.

Yesterday industry representatives warned that they will shut production as soon as this measure is adopted. They said that numerous other inputs go into the final price of their product and that the energy subsidies are not enough for them to make greater price reductions.