The rise in price of basic groceries comes after the meeting the Minister of Trade and Services, Predrag Bubalo, had with the largest producers of bread and oil and representatives from leading commerce chains.  During the meeting an agreement was made regarding the rise in price of these items in which a fixed price was placed on bread for one year as well as a fixed price for oil that will last six months, "until we can see the results of this year's harvest of sunflowers".
The Minister of Agriculture, Slobodan Milosavljević, emphasized that trade margins for certain agricultural food products are too high, especially for bread, meat and milk, which as a result push the price of these products up. He made an appeal to the merchants that they have understanding for this situation which has developed in the country due to drought and that they assist in stopping the rising prices by lowering the trade margins for agricultural food products.
However, representatives of the distribution chains insist that not only have margins not risen, but in fact they are smaller than they were in September.