Tax rates should not be increased on food items. The fact that it was decided to be 5%, in our opinion, should not be only on basic products, but should have a wider base of products, so that tax rate would not change. With that tax rate changing to 10% or so as planned, naturally that would immediately imply that prices would rise in some dimension said Goran Gjorgjievski, president of the Agro Business Chamber at the SSK, in an interview with TV 24 News.
He pointed out that they are supporters of reducing tax rates, to be lower, and customs duties to be as low as possible. It assesses that European practices should be followed.
“We have a striking fact, that 80% of the food in Macedonia is imported, and only 20% is produced by us. This is a devastating fact for us. This means that the given producers, the farmers, have practically no profitability. Therefore it is not produced. There is no other reason or explanation, the bottom line is that farmers should be helped,”said Gjorgjievski.
