For a second day in a row, main stores in Macedonia are without bread, after two dozen major industrial bakeries stopped production. The reason is the decision of the Government to cap the price of bread at 0.5 EUR per half a kilogram loaf – Prime Minister Dimitar Kovacevski justifies this intervention with the fact that the previous program of energy subsidies given to the bakeries did not lead to a price reduction.

 

Goran Malisic, representative of the chamber of bakeries, said that they can’t operate at a loss, and insisted that the subsidies did reduce prices, to the degree that electricity prices affect the final cost of the product.

 

Agriculture Minister Ljupco Nikolovski blamed the producers for the chaos, insisting that the price cap protects consumers. Inspectors were unleashed yesterday and they determined that the supermarkets sell bread at the mandated price, but that in most cases, there simply isn’t any bread on the shelv5es.