Romania imports about 80% of its pork, being at the mercy of the big players on the European pork market, while the authorities do not offer any support to encourage Romanian pig farmers, Feliciu Paraschiv, vice-president of the National Association of Small and Medium-Sized Traders in Romania (ANCMMR), said on Monday at a specialized event, informs Agerpres.
"A few years ago we produced 50% of the meat we consumed. Now we only produce 20%. About 80% of pork is imported. So we are somehow at the mercy of the big players in the European pork market and we are surprised that, look, pork has become more expensive! Pork price has gone up! But we do nothing, we don't support producers in any way to start raising pigs again," mentioned Feliciu Paraschiv, at the debate "Back to the economy. How entrepreneurs see the year 2025", organized by CLCC Freedom of Trading and Communication Coalition
At the same time, he emphasized that in recent days, he has noticed that the price of specialties that Romanians traditionally eat on holidays have increased.
"I have noticed some price increases in the last few days in the specialties that Romanians traditionally eat on holidays, such as lebar (pork pate), sorici (pork rinds), toba (mix of pork jelly and aspic and various types of pork meat), pork head, but not only necessarily meat. We don't know what will happen. It's possible that in the last week before Christmas, the big players will raise prices. I know we're big consumers of pork and they may raise the price, somewhat artificially, in the last week or so, something that we'll see in citruses, too. We've noticed over the last 10 years that in the last week or in the last 10 days of the year, citruses, bananas, exotic imported fruits get more expensive. And here I think there is a phenomenon of "greedflation", so to speak, of greed, because importers know very well that Romanians, around the holidays, no longer have that stop button and they reach into their pockets and spend," added the vice-president of ANCMMR.