One trip to a store – 9% of a salary: how much Ukrainians pay for products

 9 months ago, Ukrainians were spending 10% of their earnings on 19 products during one trip to a supermarket. According to the results of the first quarter of 2018, now the number is slightly less – 9%, writes Agro-Center.

Experts from the “Economic Discussion Club” point out that this is due to the outpacing growth of average wages in Ukraine, as prices for most of our daily food products are already same and sometimes even higher than abroad.

Buying a set of 19 products in Ukraine will cost € 21.75 (706 UAH), which is cheaper, not only in Europe but also in Belarus and Russia. However, we are still last in terms of a percentage of salary: an average Belarusian spends €2.57 more on one basket of the goods than a Ukrainian, but spends only 7.2% of their monthly earnings, while a Ukrainian spends 9% during one trip to the supermarket. Supermarket trips are most expensive purchase for French people. They spend €50 per one trip, which is 2.3 times more Ukrainians spent. However, earnings in France are 11.2 times more than in Ukraine.

The economists of the “Economic Discussion Club” add that the gap was reduced in 9 months. As of July 1st, 2017, a person in France earned 12.7 times more than a Ukrainian. Unfortunately, a number of products that are more expensive in Ukraine than abroad increased. Until recently, we only had milk that was more expensive than in Poland. Nowadays, a whole set of products – bread, flour, rice, sugar, and potatoes – is cheaper in Poland than in our country. In addition, milk prices in Ukraine are now 15-25% higher than in Hungary, Spain, and Belarus. In Russia, chicken meat is 10-20% cheaper than in Ukraine.