If prices for pasta and eggs in Russian stores continue to rise, the government will have to freeze them, that is, do the same as before with sunflower oil and sugar. This was announced by the Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Agriculture Oksana Lut, Vedomosti writes.
At a meeting of the operational headquarters for monitoring the situation in the agro-industrial complex, which was attended by representatives of regional agrarian departments and industry unions, she asked to convince producers to keep prices down at least in the first quarter.
According to Lute, in the first two weeks of the year, pasta rose in price by 8 percent (wholesale or retail price, she did not specify), and eggs from producers – by 30 percent. However, she admitted that the jump in egg prices in retail is not so significant. At what level they can fix the marginal cost, the deputy minister did not say.
The representative of the Ministry of Agriculture admitted that the meeting discussed the issue of pricing for basic food products. This included pasta, eggs and potatoes. At the same time, the department clarified that so far they see no grounds for a prompt response.
A source from Kommersant indicated that Lut was outraged by the behavior of the farmers. Those, she said, are deliberately holding back grain sales to wait for further price increases. This situation negatively affects the dynamics of the cost of many goods, since grain is the raw material for their production. The official explained that export duties will reduce grain prices in the near future and thereby remove most of the problems.
The mechanism for setting price caps Luth called bad, but forced. In her opinion, there were no other ways to limit inflation for basic product categories.
Export duties on wheat from February 15 will be 25 euros per ton, and from March 1 to June 30 – 50 euros per ton. Previously, such a mechanism was used by the authorities in 2015-2016, then the rate was 50 percent of the customs value minus 6.5 thousand rubles per ton. Later, the export duty was canceled.
Sovecon director Andrei Sizov noted that the situation with grain is more complicated than with sugar and sunflower oil. According to him, it is not clear how to legally force farmers to limit prices for their products, because we are talking about hundreds of thousands of market participants. It is very difficult to sign and control agreements with everyone.
The authorities began to regulate food prices late last year. The reason for this was the indignation of the country’s President Vladimir Putin, who considered that the cause of the problem was the desire of manufacturers and retail chains to earn extra money. According to market participants, after the introduction of these measures, small and medium-sized retail chains faced a shortage of goods. In addition, manufacturers of cheap brands of sunflower oil raised the cost to the maximum 95 rubles per liter, and more expensive brands compensated for the loss of income by increasing prices for logistics services.