December 7 (SeeNews) - Serbia's government has approved the duty-free imports of 15,000 tonnes of sunflower oil to avert a rise in domestic prices, the country's Finance Ministry said on Friday.
The government has also decided to cut import duties levied on milk powder and butter because of low domestic supply and high prices of those products, the ministry said in a statement.
Sunflower oil imports in Serbia are levied a 30% import duty, while for milk powder and butter the duties are between 20% and 30%.
Under the decision, the retail price of the sunflower oil from the 15,000 tonnes of duty-free quota should not exceed 85 dinars ($1.6/1.1 euro) per litre. Retail prices of sunflower oil range between 105 and 120 dinars per litre now.
The import duties for milk powder will be cut by 5.0 percentage ponits to 15% and for butter they will be lowered by 10 percentage points to 20%. The price of milk has recently reached some 60 dinars per litre.
The average net monthly salary in Serbia was 28,720 dinars in October, the state statistics bureau said earlier. Cumulative inflation for the first 10 months of the year was 8.2%
(1 euro = 79.4782 dinars)