Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will today announce the opening of dairy market to imports, in the wake of the "Globes" investigative report on Israel's high food prices. The report ignited the cottage cheese boycott by consumers.
At the opening of the Likud Knesset faction meeting today, Netanyahu said, "Today, I was shown a comparative table of prices relative to the Consumer Price Index (CPI), what has gone up and what has gone down. What we clearly see is that prices for products exposed to competition from imports fell below the CPI, and what was not exposed to competition from imports, rose. Dairy products are near the top of the list.
"I have asked the ministers responsible - the finance minister, agriculture minister, and minister of industry, trade and labor - to examine the possibility of opening the dairy market to competition. They will submit their recommendations by the end of the week. This may be the way to alleviate the distress."
Over the past week, the relevant ministers have said that they support opening the dairy market to imports, so their recommendations are pretty clear. Last week, Minister of Finance Yuval Steinitz said that the government would shortly allow parallel imports of dairy products.
At the 19th Caesarea Economic Forum today, Governor of the Bank of Israel Prof. Stanley Fischer said that closing the economy to imports restricted competition.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on June 20, 2011
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