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Trade federation Comeos expects major price increases in the coming year. Consumers will feel this mainly in the non-food sector, but also in supermarkets. “All factors together ensure that we have very high price increases. Higher than in recent years,” says economist Wim Van Edom.
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Nunzia Petralia
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A survey among the members of the trade federation Comeos shows that many sectors indicate that they will implement price increases in the coming months to pass on certain costs. These price increases will mainly be felt in the non-food sector, according to Wim Van Edom, economist at Comeos. “Even more than in the supermarkets, we see that there are factors in the non-food sector that point to significant price increases.” This mainly concerns interior, furniture and the do-it-yourself sector. At the end of last year, furniture giant Ikea already announced a price increase of an average of 9 percent.
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“In recent months, there has been a major increase in demand in those sectors,” says Van Edom. “That was accompanied by a lot of problems in the supply. In addition, the prices of raw materials, transport and energy have risen sharply in recent months. The linkage of wages to the index also increases wages. Sooner or later, all those price increases have to be factored in somewhere, either in profit margins or in consumer prices. All in all, this results in particularly high price increases. A lot higher than we have seen in recent years.”
It is very difficult to put a concrete figure on the various price increases, according to Van Edom. “For example, the price increases do not apply to all products. There is little variation in basic products, such as pasta and couscous. And the prices of certain electronics are also rising little or hardly. For the rest, that is difficult to predict.”
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