There have been no unjustified price rises at supermarkets since conflict broke out in the Middle East at the beginning of last month, the consumer protection service’s competition branch head Aliki Iordanou said on Monday.

She said that her department has been monitoring 45 categories of basic products, with the prices of products in 33 of those categories going up on average since the beginning of March, though she stressed that supermarkets in particular are “holding back increases” with the aim of keeping prices down for consumers.

To this end, she said that the rate of inflation in Cyprus during the month of March sat at just 1.2 per cent – the second-lowest rate of any European Union member state.

With this in mind, she said that there is currently no need for the government to roll out price controls on fuel or any other basic goods, saying that such a proposition is “not justified by domestic or international conditions”.

“The service constantly monitors prices, based on the formula it has and based on its monitoring mechanism,” she said, with this monitoring taking into account the price of fuel which Cyprus imports from both Greece and Israel.

Following on from this, she said that her department then monitors the “entire chain of fuel import and distribution” to ensure that any price increases for consumers are “justified”.

“If they are not justified, the service will recommend to the [commerce] minister the imposition of price controls, which, as I said, would be difficult in such cases,” she said.

She added that her department is “continuously monitoring prices, with all the factors I explained”.

“Neither in the food market nor in the fuel market is there any reason to impose price controls. There are no price increases which are not justified and which would justify imposing price controls,” she said.