Following the statements made by the Minister of Agriculture, Florin Barbu, regarding the preparation of an Emergency Ordinance to cap the commercial margin on all Romanian products, AMRCR issued the following statement:

"We understand and appreciate that the drafting of the legislative proposal will involve consultation with all economic operators in the agri-food sector, and we will, of course, promptly respond to any invitation for this purpose.

On the other hand, regarding the assertion that Romanian products, based solely on their origin, could have a different commercial margin compared to similar products from other markets, we do not have access to the data that the Minister probably has, and in this regard, we cannot support such an approach.

What we can certainly support, however, is that major retailers have made significant efforts to ensure the presence of Romanian products on the shelves, thus responding to the encouragement, urging, and even requests from authorities, farmers, non-governmental organizations, and all those who have been present in the public space with such messages.

Before anything else, we responded to the demand for Romanian products coming from consumers.

Therefore, now that Romanian products dominate the shelves of stores, a fact visible and confirmed even by consumers, talking about capping Romanian products may seem contradictory at least.

Therefore, we await to understand more about the strategy proposed by the Minister of Agriculture, especially in the context where many Romanian products benefit from support schemes or investment programs, including from major retailers, and have begun to penetrate, in some cases significantly, other European markets.

Especially in recent times, the retail sector has had to deal with a veritable avalanche of overregulation, under various justifications, without the objective of these regulations being clearly exposed or evaluated afterwards based on their concrete effects on the market, invoking the need to achieve results that have proven to be unsustainable.

What we can say for sure is that the retail sector is increasingly overwhelmed by the various events that have occurred to its detriment, and this can be seen in its ability to act as an economic vector for economic growth and recovery of regional development gaps," the statement reads.