Ministry of Trade: how WDS will affect socially important food products

Today, on June 22, 2021, the Minister of Trade and Integration of the Republic of Kazakhstan Bakhyt Sultanov held an annual reporting meeting with the population, during which he also spoke about the measures taken to curb prices for socially important food products.

Thus, the Ministry is working together with the Agency for the Protection and Development of Competition of the Republic of Kazakhstan and the Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic of Kazakhstan within the framework of the Roadmap approved by the Government to stabilize prices for SIFP.

"Today, a stable fund of about 20 thousand tons of food worth more than 3 billion tenge has been formed, forward contracts for the supply of more than 35 thousand tons worth about 4 billion tenge have been concluded, and more than 30 billion tenge has been allocated for the" turnover scheme", " Bakhyt Sultanov said.

About 15 thousand agreements on price stabilization were signed between akimats, retail facilities and producers, and about 700 agricultural fairs were held in order to saturate the market with goods.

In addition, until September 26, a temporary ban on the export from the country for a period of 6 months of breeding stock of cattle and MSS was introduced.

Also, on the grounds of price speculation (anti-competitive concerted actions), abuse of a dominant or monopoly position, the antimonopoly authority issued about 50 notifications to entrepreneurs in the food markets.

During the meeting, the Minister answered an urgent question addressed to the ministry – about the increase in prices for potatoes.

The Minister explained that, first of all, the market is regulated without the participation of the state, i.e. on the basis of the market economy system.

Today, there are three types of potatoes on the territory of Kazakhstan, these are: potatoes of the old harvest of domestic production, which varies in price from 180 tg / kg, potatoes imported from Egypt, Pakistan, Uzbekistan and Kyzylgyzstan, which is more expensive than our potatoes from the old harvest, as well as local potatoes of the new crop, which recently arrived on the shelves of stores at a price of 230 to 300 tg/kg.

As Bakhyt Sultanov noted, systemic measures will help to correct such situations in the future. Thus, a unified information system based on the ORC, which will be available to farmers, wholesalers, logisticians and agronomists, will help to better understand supply and demand, plan, reduce losses due to overproduction and prevent price increases due to a shortage of individual products.

"The concentration of services for the initial processing, sorting, packaging of goods, certification and quality control of products in one place will lead to a reduction in the cost of production," the head of the trade department said.