Economy Minister: “no preconditions” for bread price increase

Georgian Economy Minister Levan Davitashvili on Tuesday said there were “no preconditions” for an increase in the commercial gas tariff causing a rise in bread prices across the country.

The Minister said the Tbilisi Energy gas supply company had announced an increase in the cost of natural gas for commercial consumption from January by four tetri, adding the commercial sector depended on prices of petroleum products on international markets.  

This change does not directly affect the public but may have an indirect effect on inflation”, he said.

Davitashvili also mentioned the latest inflation data by the National Statistics Office of Georgia, which showed prices of certain food products had decreased across the country in November.

• Certain food, household equipment, health costs down, inflation at 0.1% across Georgia in November

He added the impact of increase in commercial gas price on inflation had been assessed as “insignificant”.

We do not expect the price of bread to rise either - on the contrary, this pressure will be removed from the population”, the Minister said.

Davitashvili also noted gas prices had seen fluctuations and added trends of reductions had been “more significant” over the year compared to the anticipated increase.