Exceeding the trade mark-up for Socially significant products entails a fine

The Central communications Service under the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan held a briefing on the regulation of food prices and ensuring food security (in the conditions of CVI).

The speakers from the Ministry of agriculture, the Agency for protection and development of competition, The Department for investment and business development of Nur-Sultan were Deputy Director of the Department of internal trade of the MTI of the Republic of Kazakhstan Yeshnazarov Yerlan.

According to Yerlan Yeshnazarov, the Ministry of trade constantly monitors prices for socially important food products (NWFP) in order to timely stabilize them during the peak growth period, including the off-season.

Speaking, he noted that according to the Law on the regulation of trade activities and the rules of internal trade, prices for goods are determined by trade entities independently, with the exception of prices for NWPT.

For 9 months of 2020, as of October 1, 2020, prices for NWPT increased by 4.2%. At the same time, from may to September, prices declined, amounting to 0.1% in may, 0% in June and July, -1% in August and 0.4% in September.

In order to stabilize prices, the Ministry of trade together with the akimats approve the threshold values of retail prices for socially important goods. At the same time, if they are exceeded by 15% and at the same time increase by 30% within 30 days, the maximum prices are set.

For example, starting from July 3, 2020, the maximum prices for category 1 eggs in the amount of 284 tenge per 10 pieces are set in the Kyzylorda region.

"At the same time, the law establishes the size of the trade premium for NWPT in the amount of no more than 15% of the manufacturer's selling price or the wholesale supplier's purchase price. In case of violation of this norm two or more times during the year, an administrative fine is provided for small, medium and large businesses in the amount of 10, 75 and 300 MCI, respectively. This measure makes it possible to exclude artificially inflated prices by intermediaries, " said the Deputy Director Of the Department of internal trade.

The Ministry also provides for administrative responsibility to trade entities for collecting remuneration (retro bonus) from suppliers of socially significant goods and for collecting more than 5% of remuneration for other food products. In addition, the duty of trade market administrators to inform trade entities about the size of marginal prices for socially important goods has been introduced.

The Deputy Director of the Department of internal trade recalled that another tool for regulating prices for NWPT is the reverse scheme.

"Since 2019, it has been possible for akimats to provide preferential loans to retail chains with the establishment of counter-obligations for the implementation of NWPT at a fixed price. This mechanism has already proven itself. In the regions, retail chains have been allocated preferential loans in the amount of 14.5 billion tenge under the "reverse scheme", " ye.Yeshnazarov said.

We remind that since the beginning of April 2020, an electronic platform for online monitoring of prices for socially important goods has been launched "dosmart.kz", which currently has about 28 thousand registered users.

The platform allows you to get data on product prices, product availability, and the workload of retail outlets and warehouses in real time.

By the end of the year, it is planned to increase the product catalog to compare prices for a particular product in different stores.

At the same time, users are provided with cashback for providing information.