A bar of soap costs an average 48 eurocents (RON 2) in Romania, compared to 21 eurocents (RON 0.9) in Hungary or 24 eurocents (RON 1) in Poland, while a tube of toothpaste costs EUR 1.8 in Romania, against EUR 1.19 in Bulgaria or EUR 1.46 in Hungary, finds a study conducted by the market research company GfK, quoted by ‘Ziarul Financiar.’
The study – the first that compares the prices of 11 types of consumer goods in several countries of Central and Eastern Europe – only analyses categories of products, without considering specific brands.
“The bigger prices could be explained by the fact that, in certain situations, there is no local production capacity. Even is such a unit exists, it cannot cover the whole market, so imports are necessary,” explains Laurian Lungu, analyst with Macroanalitica.
Romania was left with no toothpaste or soap factory in 2008, when Colgate Palmolive closed its plant in Brasov, where it was producing the Super Cristal brand, and relocated its operations to Bulgaria. Same goes with soap, where the best sold brands – Protex, Dove and Palmolive – are imported as well. In the case of detergents and shampoo, although there are local producers in the market, they export most of their output. Such an example is the Procter&Gamble factory of Urlati, which was exporting – earlier this year – 90 pc of its production to several countries of the region.
