World News for Students of English

26-01-2023 07:00

On January 1, 2023, Croatia started to use the euro, and then the prices of almost all products went up.

Many people are upset about the situation, and some of them had to find an extra job. In January, traders rounded prices, and for most products, prices went up by five to twenty percent. Traders said that the reasons were the rise in prices of materials and energy, but oil, electricity, and water didn’t change in the previous two months.

Inspectors checked hundreds of businesses in January, and they found that 40% of them increased prices too much. Traders used the situation to increase prices more than they should. The government said that traders had to cut prices or they would face sanctions.

Difficult words: round (to change the price to the closest number), inspector (a person whose job is to check if people follow rules), sanction (money which someone pays if he breaks a law or rule).

You can watch the original video in the Level 3 section.