The prime minister, António Costa, said today that the zero VAT rate applied to 46 products since mid-April is proving effective and that the prices of these products fell 9.67% in the last month.
“The latest data tells us that prices fell 9.67% last month. It is a measure that, fortunately, is having an impact”, said António Costa, reminding that next week will mark three months of the entry into force of the zero VAT rate for a basket of food products considered essential.
The Prime Minister, who was speaking to journalists after a visit to Primohorta, an organization of agricultural producers in Montijo, which is mainly dedicated to the production and marketing of potatoes, onions and carrots, also left a thank you to all those who contributed to the implementation of this measure.
“I would like to thank everyone for the effort they have been making to make this result possible. It is a very big effort for the taxpayers, because the taxpayers give up a part of their revenue to this price reduction,” he said.
“We are well aware that there is a very significant difference between the price at which you sell and the price at which we, as consumers, buy. And this reduction in the growth rate of food inflation would not have been possible without your contribution,” António Costa underlined, after recalling that the inflation rate was 10.1% in October last year, and that it fell to 3.4% last month.
Addressing the people in charge of Primohorta, in Montijo, Setúbal district, but also all the country’s farmers, the Prime Minister left an appeal for them to continue to invest in increasing production and the quality of agricultural products, so that Portugal can reduce imports.
During his visit to Montijo, the Prime Minister was accompanied by the Minister of Agriculture, Maria do Céu Antunes, who referred to the Primohorta producers’ organization as an example for the sector.
“We are here to show the good practices of this company, which I don’t like to call a company, I like to call a producers’ organization, because that’s what it is, and it has the dimension of what we aspire to for Portuguese agriculture,” said Maria do Céu Antunes.
“We have an agriculture that is known not to be of large proportions, we don’t have large territorial extensions that allow us to have latifundium agriculture. On the contrary, [it is an agriculture] of many minifundios that come together, but that can only be truly profitable if they organize themselves like this [as in Primohorta].
Maria do Céu Antunes also said that the Government continues to be “on the side of the farmers” and recalled the extraordinary measures approved for the sector, to face the covid-19 pandemic and the war that started last February with the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
