Gfk: Prices will not skyrocket after accession

In the first years after Romania”s accession to the EU, the international retail chains will bring a change in the structure of local trade and heavier competition on the market, which could generate a drop in prices for FMCG products (consumer goods), according to a study of the market research institute Gfk. “There is fear that the prices of FMCG products could explode once the accession is completed. The experience of ex-communist states such as the Czech Republic, which are already EU members, has proven that this is unlikely,” said Tomas Krasny, Managing Director of Fessel-Gfk Austria. The Gfk study anticipates that control over the market and implicitly over prices will shift from producers to retailers in the coming years, which will allow the trend to make products cheaper on the single market to continue, amid increasingly fiercer competition amongst the retailers. In the face of an offensive of the big international retail chains, modern trade will achieve a 50% share of the Romanian consumer market by 2010, against the 29% it currently holds. ZF