Competition Council investigates into excessive increase in the price for medical masks

Competition Council investigates into the behavior of companies selling medical protection products and equipment, in the context in which prices for such products and equipment rose too high, the head of the Competition Council, Bogdan Chiritoiu, stated on Tuesday.

"At this time, the demand for medical protection equipment, namely medical masks, is very high, and producers do not manage to cover it. At the same time, it's not normal that some companies take advantage of this situation and increase their prices without any justified reason," he specified.

According to him, the companies risk fines of up to 10 per cent of their business turnover, unless they prove they did not broke the law.

"Therefore, we are investigating into the behavior of the companies selling medical protection products and equipment in the healthcare field and labour security, in the context in which they increased prices very much. If we discover that they broke the competition rules, as you know, these companies risk fines of up to 10 per cent of their business turnover," he claimed.

The Association of Pharmaceutical Distributors and Retailers (ADRFR) claims that, at this point, the pharmacies only have a minimum stock to cover for the current demand of protection masks, without the possibility of supplementing it, because of a lack of stock at the level of the (national and international) producers.

"The data from the market show that the production and delivery of protection masks treat the Chinese Republic as a priority. Moreover, these masks are a product that is mostly made in China and, because of the massive spread of the virus in this country, the producers have not been able to meet their demand lately. In terms of protection suits, the pharmacies did not sale such products. The distributors do not sale either protection masks or protection suits," reads aN ADRFR press release send to AGERPRES on Tuesday.

A box with 50 medical masks used to cost approximately 25 lei a month ago, while these days it can cost up to almost 500 lei.