Food Prices Too High

Gylfi Arnbjörnsson, the managing director of the Confederation of Icelandic Labour, says that food prices in Iceland are in some cases 50% than in neighbouring countries, and would like to see the Minister of Agriculture look into the situation. Arnbjörnsson attributes the high prices to both heavy subsidies for farmers and a lack of protectionist import tariffs. Guðni Ágústsson, the Minister of Agriculture, countered the argument by saying that import tariffs reduce competitiveness on the international market, but did concede that more needs to be done to examine how to reduce domestic food prices.