The owner of a grocery store in Marten noted that every day the prices of stocked goods were increased
The annual inflation in our country it has been in single digits for the tenth month and continues to decrease. This is what the NSI data show. Inflationhowever, it continues to be considered a “stumbling block” on our way to the euro, and only after the convergence report in the summer will we know whether there will be another postponement of the date for our accession. But how did the last three countries that adopted the euro perform?
Croatia joins the currency union with a record inflation – over 12%. However, this is happening in the period of the covid pandemic, and subsequently the attempted full-scale invasion of Russia in Ukraine. Before them – in 2020. inflationthat in Croatia was around zero, BNT informs.
Before that, Lithuania joined the union – in 2015, Vilnius fully met the Maastricht criteria. Inflationso in the two-year period before the eurozone membership it exceeded only twice 2%.
A year earlier, Latvia adopted the euro – in 2014. At that time, the annual inflation in the country it is 0.4%. Although two years earlier, the Baltic state also had to contend with a higher inflationbut from about 4.5%.
In our country – months before the expected accession – the monthly inflation is 0.2%, and the annual – 3%. And the data shows that it continues to decline. However, do consumers feel in their pockets that inflation is falling?
“Ooooh, no, I don’t see that there is decline on inflationbecause no matter how many times I enter shopah pricesthey are still up“, Yanka Trifonova is categorical.
Yanka Trifonova’s pension from ruse just enough for the essentials.
“Boil beans, I don’t bother to buy meat. Thank God that bread remains at the same price now and that the children are alive and well.
BNT: Do they help?
– Oh yes, they go shopping in bulk so it can come out cheaper in the end.“
Galya Georgieva also buys wholesale to fill her grocery shop in Marten. Every day the goods are at a different price.
“Today, if I receive the wafer for BGN 0.20, the next day it is BGN 0.24, the next day at BGN 0.27. not just the waffle, any product. We talk about meats, we talk about alcohol, cigarettes“, said Galya Georgieva, owner of food shop.
“There is an increase in the price of sausages and ice creams. Decline seen in vegetables when they are in season“, said Georgi Minchev – owner of food shop.
“It’s getting harder and harder to work. It’s scaryGalya Georgieva is emphatic.
IN shopand Georgi Minchev’s notebook with customers who shop at Veresia in order to survive has long since been written out.
“They pay off, yes, but there are cases where they can’t even get there“, commented Georgi Minchev – owner of food shop.
According to economists, decline on inflationit does not mean a decrease in the general price level.
“Just pricesinstead of growing by 17%, as it was at the end of 2022, they grow by 3%, which is above the EU average, which is 2.4% there. It is not only how they change that is important pricesthey, and the nominal wages. The gross salary in Bulgaria is growing faster than it is growing inflationso. I can’t say that we feel rich, just against the background of what it was 2 years ago, we should not feel aggravation“, explained Associate Professor Alexander Kosuliev, head of the “Economics and International Relations” department at the RU.
Salaries in the private sector in 2023 have increased by 16%, and in the public sector by 27%.
