Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich invited on Thursday, April 27, the leadership of the largest Israeli dairy companies “Tnuva” and “Tara” to a meeting and invited them to agree to mitigate the increase in prices for dairy products.
Recall that on May 1, prices for milk and dairy products, controlled by the state, should increase by 16%. Part of the rise in prices is due to the increase in production costs over the past 10 months, and part is due to the delay in price increases undertaken by the previous government. Then milk went up by 5% instead of 14%.
Smotrich suggested that companies repeat the same move – immediately raise prices by 9%, and paint the remaining 7% “for payments.” However, this time the companies refused to meet the Ministry of Finance.
The Finance Minister said he had asked Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter to draft a deferment decree without the consent of the companies, but the move is likely to involve legal action because, under the terms of a previous agreement between the Finance Ministry and dairy companies, food price indexation, the pricing of which is controlled by the state, from this year should be carried out automatically, without the need for a ministerial decree.