The Ministry of Agriculture and Food says a new national unit to monitor food supplies has held its first meeting. The unit will look for unfair trade practices that push up the price of basic foods for no good reason.

Last Thursday, Agriculture Minister Abrovski said the National Revenue Agency (NRA) was joining checks by the ministry, the Bulgarian Food Safety Agency (BFSA) and the Consumer Protection Commission (CPC) on mark-ups all along the chain, from producer to retail chains. He said the full check began last week.

Earlier on this story: Tax agency joins checks on markups, from producers to retail chains

Inspectors are checking where goods in warehouses come from, whether imported products are sold as Bulgarian, and what mark-ups traders add between themselves. Abrovski told BNT that the state must know where produce comes from when it enters a trade warehouse. He said officials must find out whether Greek goods are sold as Bulgarian, whether this distorts the market and harms Bulgarian farmers, and whether traders add uncontrolled mark-ups among themselves.

"Prices are a priority for the prime minister and for the whole government," Abrovski said.

Prime Minister Rumen Radev set up the unit by order. It is called the National Coordination Unit for Developing Mechanisms to Monitor and Control the Food Supply Chain on the Bulgarian Market. It will propose steps on pricing along the chain, under open and fair competition. The institutions will work together to watch the market better and protect consumers.

Abrovski chairs the unit. He called on the institutions to keep up their joint checks and coordinated action. He said they should keep up good coordination, share information and use their powers so that price-setting is open and consumers are protected.

Innovation and digital transformation minister Ivan Vasilev is deputy chair. Those at the meeting included deputy agriculture minister Prof. Krum Nedelkov, deputy minister of economy, investment and industry Krasimir Yakimov, and NRA executive director Boris Mihaylov. Also present were BFSA deputy executive director Dr Georgi Chavdarov, CPC chair Maya Manolova, Rozalia Dimitrova of the Customs Agency, and Elena Boltadzhieva, a member of the State Commission on Commodity Exchanges and Wholesale Markets.