Jewish Home Chairman and Economics Minister Naftali Bennett says that after ten years of rising food prices, the government in which he was Economics Minister lowered food prices by an average of 5% over the past year.

He presented the official numbers from the Central Bureau of Statistics on his Facebook page.

“Food prices increased sharply over the last decade, and other consumer goods did as well,” he explained. “Why? Reducing competition led to a less competitive market, causing prices to skyrocket.”

He spelled out a series of measures that were taken over the last two years:

When I entered office, I demanded to become Chairman of the Cost of Living Cabinet, and we carried out a series of actions:

• We passed the new Food Law – It prohibits price fixing activities and the exploitation of competition. The law forces all food prices to be posted online, prevents the creation of local monopoly networks and more.
• Breaking up the agricultural “intermediaries” cartel – The cartel allowed specific brokers to coordinate agricultural prices for decades!! According to the previous law they had a special “exemption” that allowed them to take advantage of us. (…) 
• We have increased imports, and it has created more competition.
• We have transferred milk quotas from the bigger manufacturers to the smaller companies to promote competition. (…)
• We used the approach of promoting competition in other sectors as well: household goods, appliances, furniture, clothing and more. We have lowered prices over the last year in the areas I which we promoted competition.

Bennett added that his plan to reduce prices further is simply “to continue what we started.”

Yair Lapid of Yesh Atid was Finance Minister in the same government as Bennett. The Economics Ministry was previously named the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Employment, and continues to bear responsibility for these fields.