Prices of bread in Bulgaria would increase by 10-15 per cent after the elections, chairman of the Federation of bread producers and confectioners in Bulgaria Dimitar Lyudiev predicted on November 2.

At a press conference in the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA) Lyudiev said that at present bread prices were being deliberately kept stable.

The reason for the bread price increase is that in October 2007 only, the price of a ton of flour rose by 150 leva from 720 leva to between 850 and 900 leva.  For the past 3 years the price of a ton of flour had risen by 300 per cent, Lyudiev added, commenting that the current situation is even more worrying than the 2003 wheat crisis, Dnevnik daily said.

Lyudiev said that another reason for the increase of bread prices was the rise of bread producers' salaries. In Europe a bread producer's salary is about 2500 – 3000 euro, while in Bulgaria it is about 350 – 400 leva.

Spokesperson of the Federation Mariana Kukusheva said the price of a kilogram of bread could reach 2 leva. She added that traders earned twice as much as bread producers. However, nobody controlled them.