Retail food prices in the Czech Republic - The influence of selected factors

Abstract

During the last decade (2000-2010), we have witnessed an unprecedented rise in food prices, especially from the world and European market viewpoint. The article aims to analyze the development of prices in the food market in the Czech Republic and to identify the influence of global and European prices development on domestic food price development and price development of selected food products. The article focuses primarily on the sensitivity of Czech food price development and especially on sensitivity of the selected commodity aggregations price development on the global and European market price growth. Furthermore, it is analyzed the impact of changes in value added tax rate from 10% to 14% on food prices in general and then on the prices of selected food products in retails network. The results of the analysis are following. The Czech food market reacts sensitively to changes in food prices on the global market as well as on the EU market but the EU price development is determining for the CR. In terms of price response to change in the VAT rate, it appears that the growth rate is not absorbed on the production side but it is largely transferred to consumer prices. The selected food sample also showed high responsiveness in the development of prices to changes in the EU market prices but there are certain variations given by specifics of the Czech market.