Romanians have started to buy provisions at lower prices just before the VAT increase, which has left many supermarkets and hypermarkets without stocks for certain production, like oil, sugar and other basic food items. Store like discounter Profi have seen their sale go up by 20 to 30 percent in the last couple of days, compared to the average sales before the VAT hike announcement.

Meanwhile, retailers are struggling to change the prices for products on their shelves to comply with the 24 percent VAT from July 1st. This means some of the large retailers will close down a couple of hours ahead today, or not work non-stop if they usually had this program so that they can work though the nigh to calculate the new prices and change the labels.

Besides changing the price labels themselves, retailers also need to change the software to add the 24 percent VAT rate instead of the 19 percent one.