The Slovak Antimonopoly Office (PMU) has warned that the government’s anti-pandemic measures closing most stores except for groceries and hypermarkets has given the country’s biggest retailers a huge advantage. Whereas specialized retailers such as stationery stores, toy shops, pet supplies and bookstores have had to close, the large hypermarkets that sell all of those goods have been able to continue doing business simply because they also sell food. The longer these smaller stores are forced to remain shuttered, warned the PMU, the greater the chance that they will fail entirely and hand even greater market control over to the big chains. It called on legislators to take the necessary steps to avoid permanent structural changes in the concentration of market share in these sectors to ensure fair prices for consumers and a wide choice of products.
