Bakers to meet minister over kerosene price hike

The Bakers' Cooperative said yesterday it will be meeting the Minister for Competitiveness and Communications, Censu Galea, on Tuesday in order to discuss the hike in the price of kerosene.

By the end of this week the cooperative will conclude a cost analysis of the "sharp" rise in the cost of kerosene in order to submit it to the minister to back up its argument.

There are about 170 bakeries in Malta, 140 of which are members of the cooperative.

The price of kerosene was raised by a hefty 19c3 per litre from 15c1 in the budget for 2005. Cooperative president Karmenu Micallef explained that a bakery fired by kerosene had to fork out an additional weekly expense of about Lm160 as a result of the hike.

Mr Micallef said that the hike in the price of kerosene had led to fuel-fired bakeries to carry a financial burden that wood-fired bakeries did not.

The last rise in the price of the traditional Maltese loaf was registered last August when the price of a large loaf went up from 16c to 17c to make up for an additional 56c in the cost of a sack of flour and a cost of living increase.

"Bakers who had modernised their system of baking are being penalised because they have been placed at a disadvantage compared to bakeries that are still wood-fired," Mr Micallef said.