Experts comment on food price caps
January 15th, 2022A leading liberal outlet believes the government may have made mistakes by capping the prices of basic food products, but by and large, the decision seems rational from an electoral point of view.
Quoting experts on the government price freeze on basic foodstuffs (see BudaPost, January 13) , Heti Világgazdaság’s Judit Windisch believes that adding chicken backs to the already announced list of six foods may backfire, as it sends a message of dire poverty, while the government’s narrative is one of mounting prosperity. She remarks, however, that since 80 percent of Hungarians consider inflation to be the number one problem in their everyday lives, capping food prices appears to carry a positive, albeit symbolic message. Cutting the VAT on foodstuffs would have been a more professional solution, she writes, but unadvisable given the extremely high public deficit.