A swift end to the current price pressures facing businesses and consumers is "not foreseeable", the president of Germany's Federal Association of Wholesale, Foreign Trade and Services (BGA), Dirk Jandura, has said.
Jandura was commenting after the country's Federal Statistics Office noted that consumer prices rose 7.3% in March, following on from a 5.1% rise in February.
“Consumers are increasingly feeling the price pressure from rising energy prices and supply bottlenecks," he said, welcoming relief measures that are being introduced to lessen the impact.
In March, the German government announced a €16 billion package to counter soaring energy costs, which included a one-off tax-relief payment of €300 per person.
"Relief packages for citizens and business are basically the right signal," he noted. "It is important that the relief is implemented quickly and practicably."
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Solving The Underlying Issues
At the same time, Jandura said that while relief measures are welcome, they will be unable to solve the underlying situation.
"This requires fundamental changes to the course that will eliminate the existing restrictions on supply," said Jandura.
"A strategic, foreign trade flanking of the realignment of supply and sales chains is just as much a part of this as the promotion of the change to a diversified, efficient and cost-effective energy supply. In the long term, the European policy of cheap money also needs to be changed."
© 2022 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Stephen Wynne-Jones. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine.
