Chairman and managing director Jerónimo Martins considered this Thursday that the prime minister’s intention to take action is “late”, at a time when there will be “a certain reduction in inflation”, perhaps even “to reduce costs”.
Pedro Soares dos Santos spoke in Lisbon at a press conference on the results of Jeronimo Martins’ group in 2022.
Asked about Prime Minister António Costa’s statements on Thursday, the official said that it is first necessary to look specifically at what is at stake and that any negotiations in this area are held at the headquarters of the APED – Associação Portuguesa das Empresas de Distribuição.
On Thursday, the prime minister announced that his government will work with agents in the food chain to ensure food prices are lowered, allowing for VAT cuts.
On March 10 last year, at a press conference to present the results, Pedro Soares dos Santos defended the reduction of the tax burden in the face of rising costs and inflation.
Asked if there was still time for these possible mitigation measures, President Jerónimo Martins felt they were taking too long.
“These measures come late,” at a time “when there is some sort of relief from inflation, they came late and, therefore, perhaps they will come at that time to cost less,” the manager said.
This is because “I think the European Union has announced again that the public debt must be controlled, the deficit must return to the previous figures” and since this was not decided in the past, “in the days of fat cows”, now it will have to be done “in lean times,” he added.
“And the only way to solve this problem is to levy more taxes, the rest is talk,” he concluded, since “the state does not generate profit, it only knows how to collect taxes.”
And so “it will happen, and I think that this year we will again have hard times with the history of interest rates,” said President Jeronimo Martins, who already exactly one year ago expressed concerns about interest rates. and the level of debt.
“Look what is happening in the banking sector: we are again in the cloud that we do not know,” he warned.
“With no profit and with money, I know how to survive, because if I depend on banks, we don’t know what will happen,” the manager warned, pointing to what happened recently with Crédit Suisse.
This story of Crédit Suisse and UBS “is not well told, maybe if you talk to António Horta Osorio he will tell you everything that happened there and why he had to leave,” Pedro Soares dos Santos told reporters.
In his opinion, the world will still experience “many uncertainties” and it is necessary to pay attention to what the US Federal Reserve System (FRS) is doing.
“One thing that is sacred to me in this business is getting cash so as not to depend on banks,” concluded Pedro Soares dos Santos.
On Thursday, the prime minister announced that his government will work with agents in the food chain to ensure food prices are lowered, allowing for VAT cuts.
During the parliamentary debate on general policy, António Costa emphasized that the government and food chain participants have a “common goal” to reduce and “control inflation on food products”, acknowledging that their cost is “clearly higher than the average inflation at the national level and even higher than in other European countries.”
“Let’s wait and see what will be announced,” he said.
“It is with APED that these negotiations, if any, will be held,” he concluded on this occasion.
In the case of VAT cuts on some products in Poland, the executive chairman of the Polish chain Biedronka, Luis Araujo, said the measure “was smart” in that market.
It is “an effective measure by the Polish government that has effectively delivered solid benefits to Polish families and continues to aggressively reduce inflation,” he continued, estimating that inflation would have been “about four points higher had it not been implemented.”
Polish families, Luis Araujo added, “paid less than a billion zlotys of VAT that they would have paid” if the Polish government’s measure had not been applied.
“All prices have been reduced directly and in equal proportion with the reduction of VAT, this does not mean that this stops inflation, there are other factors explaining the evolution of prices over the years, which can be guaranteed (…) precisely in the fact that in Poland the cost of the VAT reduction was completely passed on to families,” he stressed, noting that this is “a very positive measure.”
In turn, the CEO of Pingo Doce Isabelle Ferreira Pinto said that Portuguese families are experiencing difficulties.
“If the government takes this measure, it should have done it more than a year ago, as happened with the government of Poland” and with the Spaniards, he believed.
“To say that in Spain the reduction of VAT, which is 5%, and in Portugal – 6%, does not affect families, is not true,” the manager emphasized.
Now price inflation “was higher” and “if you’re going to look at prices in Spain, because of this VAT cut, they definitely went up less than they did in Portugal, and it helped families,” he argued.
“I think the government was the only intermediary in the value chain that did not allow any decline in their income last year,” said Isabel Ferreira Pinto.
Therefore, “the time has come to take measures to help Portuguese families, and we, of course, being a good measure for Portuguese families, will completely switch to reducing VAT on food prices,” he concluded.
Author: Portuguese
Source: CM Jornal
I’m Tifany Hawkins, a professional journalist with years of experience in news reporting. I currently work for a prominent news website and write articles for 24NewsReporters as an author. My primary focus is on economy-related stories, though I am also experienced in several other areas of journalism.