The government must influence the retention of food and energy prices, and together with the opposition, also on utility prices, as increases would completely destroy the already weak standard of Croatian families, assessed the president of the Independent Croatian Trade Unions (NHS) Krešimir Sever at today’s press conference, where he presented the NHS’s consumer basket for July.
The government must use its influence in INA and HEP to prevent gas and electricity prices from rising in the fall, and together with the opposition, it should prevent the increase in utility prices in local government units, says Sever. Commenting on announcements of a possible increase in bread prices, Sever assessed that there is no basis for that given the current price of wheat. One must only be careful, he adds, not to export too much wheat so that we do not have to import it later at higher prices. Like bread, meat should not become more expensive in the fall, believes the unionist, as in his opinion, livestock is fed with food obtained from last year’s corn harvest and other raw materials, which were not expensive. The average consumer basket for a four-member family for July, according to NHS calculations, amounts to 6,635.22 kuna, which is 0.06 percent higher than in June, reported Sever.
The average net salary for May paid in June covers 79.53 percent of the average basket, which is 0.42 percent higher than the previous month. In the NHS, this slight increase is explained by the increase in the average net salary compared to the previous month by 31 kuna. They also warn that the net salary should be reduced by an average of 2.8 percent due to the crisis tax, so the real coverage of the basket by salary is 77.3 percent. Responding to critics that the basket does not reflect actual consumption, Sever said that by including the costs of car maintenance, purchasing medicines, and phone and mobile expenses, the coverage drops to 75 percent.
